Talk:Circus arts

Ambiguous distinction between circus arts and circus skills
I am still a little hazy on the difference between "circus arts" and "circus skills." The circus skills page contains a long but useful list of circus disciplines. Many of the links pointing to this page (circus arts) were from articles about circus schools or companies. The current contents of this page -- a table of the differences between contemporary and traditional circus -- don't match at all what one would logically expect to find, following most of those links. I have temporarily rerouted those links, where applicable, to "circus skills," because its contents made a lot more sense as a logical follow-up.

This brings me to my point: the distinction between "circus arts" and "circus skills" defined in Template:Circus related seems pretty artificial and not in accordance with present usage by circus schools and companies. When they say "circus arts," they use it interchangeably with "circus skills" -- though with slightly more of an implied bid for academic/artistic legitimacy.

With some considerable expansion, the "circus arts" page may yet have a distinct role to play on Wikipedia -- something more academic perhaps than a raw list of disciplines, with more of a sense of overview or theory, to match the epic scope of its cousins in the Performing arts infobox (Music, Theatre, etc). But I think this page's contents don't currently match what users click through expecting to see. What would you expect to see on this page? AtticusX (talk) 09:22, 2 October 2009 (UTC)


 * For organizational purposes, I have tentatively moved this page's contents to contemporary circus, where it fits in rather nicely with the existing contents, and am making this page a redirect to circus skills. If anybody would like to have a go at starting another "circus arts" article that 1) matches the article name, 2) serves a purpose distinct from the circus and circus skills articles, and 3) ideally moves it in the direction of its cousins in the Performing arts infobox in terms of a sense of an integrated overview... please do, by all means.  Do let me know if you disagree with this move and have a suggestion.  AtticusX (talk) 16:16, 30 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I'm moving this redirect to Circus. People using the Performing Arts template expect to find an article about Circus not a random list page.  The Opera link doesn't take people to a List of Operas --Hutcher (talk) 03:32, 8 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the Performing Arts template should point to Circus - users arriving from that navbox will expect a general overview and history of the genre - but it's better in this case to simply fix that template to point to Circus, rather than change where all articles' links to Circus arts will land. The majority of instances of the phrase "circus arts" are using it synonymously with "circus skills", e.g. "The performance features various circus arts..." or "The École trains students in a wide range of circus arts..." So I've fixed the Performing Arts template and I am about to return this page's redirection to circus skills. AtticusX (talk) 15:15, 15 May 2010 (UTC)