The cohort spent the final week of their first fall semester together at FLIC Circus School in Torino, located in Northern Italy. Housed in the premises of the Italian national gymnastic association, FLIC is an institution which includes state of the art facilities and enjoys a national and international reputation for training performers in contemporary circus.

The purpose of our week in Torino at FLIC was to give us an idea of the various kinds of physical training that we’ll be doing when we come back for our five week summer module in June. Our schedule consisted of intensive cardio and strength training, followed by an introductory class that consisted of everything from handstands to cartwheels. In the afternoons, we were pleased to join the other local and foreign students of FLIC for a few hours of group stretching. All of our classes were taught by professional acrobats as well as Pedagogic Director Matteo Lo Prete, the founder of FLIC, and a former trainer of the Italian Olympic team.

At the very end of the week, the group received feedback at the end of the week about the kinds of stretches and exercise techniques that we are required to do in order to fully prepare ourselves for the summer module. Matteo will be visiting us here in Arezzo for another evaluation in March to monitor our progress, but in the meantime, he strongly advised that we start our workouts for circus immediately at the start of our winter break. As for this final week, we embraced this final stretch of our first semester in the most vigorous and physically exhausting way possible, and enjoyed every minute of it.

Since our week in Torino, we’ve gone our separate ways to visit friends and family for the holidays. As we start to arrive back in Arezzo one by one from our various winter break locations, we look forward to our continued studies in physical theatre during our second semester.