A Tale of Two Circuses - The Great Moscow Circus and Cirque Africa

Under a cheerful red and yellow big top tent in Majura Park, Russian acrobats do spectacular double and triple somersaults onto springboards; blindfolded trapeze artists fling themselves backwards through space; and the tightrope walker hangs by one arm from a thin wire metres above the ground. Ponies and llamas trot around the ring, to the delight of children, some of whom have a tug-of-war with Zobo the clown.

In a blue tent with red and white zigzags in Exhibition Park, some of Africa's best circus performers juggle tables and boys with their feet, balance on increasingly precarious cylinders and chairs, or lift grown men one-handed over their heads while doing ab crunches. Africa's largest acrobatic troupe, the Hakuna Matatas, form human pyramids and swarm up poles, while the "Snake Man" and his partner bend themselves backwards like hairpins, tuck their feet under their chins and twist themselves into shapes that would astound and maybe alarm chiropractors.

Winston Ruddle's Cirque Africa and Edgley Attractions' Great Moscow Circus both show the diversity and vitality of the circus.

For the 50th anniversary of the Great Moscow Circus, manager Mark Edgley says, they have "tried to make a show with traditional acts, new acts, history acts, and maintain a very strong show for the brand".

Mark is the third Edgley to manage the show. His family's involvement with Russia goes back to grandfather Eric, who brought Soviet actors, dancers and musicians to Australia in 1962 and the Great Moscow Circus over in 1965. Mark's father, Michael – who took over the business when Eric died in 1967 – has presented more than 10,000 Russian performers worldwide, from dancers (including Rudolf Nureyev, whom he helped defect to the West) to circus performers.

For centuries, circuses were the most popular form of entertainment in Russia. "Our family's done the Russian circus for 50 years because they're so highly talented," says Edgley, "they always deliver the best".

Take the Russian acrobats, for instance. "Every time they do a show, it's a competition. 'Oh, you did the double somersault? I'll have to do the triple somersault today'."

Not all the performers are Russian, however. A Chinese gymnast dances an arabesque on her partner's head – a "New Age quirky act" Edgley found on YouTube. The show ends in a world record breaking Globe of Death, in which six Brazilian cyclists whizz at top speed around the inside of a metal globe.

"It's a good, pumped-up finish," Edgley says. "People walk away going, 'Wow, that was great!' That's part of the whole mix – having the traditional acts and the Russian acts and the clowns."

The circus is a world of its own, a community that travels. The Great Moscow Circus has 65 people, of whom 38 are performers. "The rest," Edgley says, "are wives, kids, box office staff, production, electricians, maintenance, everyone else. The clown might be a mechanic. People double up as different things."

The biggest change to circuses over the past 50 years, Edgley believes, is Guy Laliberte's Cirque du Soleil, which revolutionised how circuses were done. "Cirque du Soleil's format changed circus styles. Their show was without animals, theatrical, well-choreographed, production-wise, expensive, but it had a storyline. You could see it four times, and every time you'd see different things."

Cirque du Soleil's influence is strongest on Cirque Africa, whose Zimbabwean founder and manager, Winston Ruddle, is the first black African in the world to own, direct and produce a big top circus show. "It's an animal free circus and it's a visual show, without any language barriers," he says.

The show – a sell-out in Europe and the US – mixes live music, dance and acrobatic display in a celebration of African culture.

"It's circus themes based around African culture, so we have African music, African costumes, African themes that we added to the show that show the joyful side of Africa," says Ruddle.

Showcasing African culture is important to Ruddle, who tires of the media's negative portrayal of Africa. "For sure, there's disease, there's famine, some countries have a lot of crime, there's corruption – but that's not Africa as a whole. It's not all the time despair and poverty and sickness, otherwise Africa wouldn't be existing. We try to bring a different light of Africa to the audiences. Besides entertainment, we also try to show the positive side of Africa."

The joy is palpable, and the performances are exhilarating. The show is circus in the round, as much theatre as demonstration of physical skill. The tent can hold 1100 people, but feels intimate. The performers – all from sub-Saharan Africa, including Tanzania, Ethiopia, Ghana and Kenya – grin broadly and high-five audience members, who cheer and whoop with delight.

The circus began as the African Acrobatic Academy, an underground acrobatic school in Dar-es-Salaam – and that school, Ruddle says, started as a mistake.

He was performing with a troupe of Zimbabwean acrobats at a Brisbane casino when they were offered a job in Las Vegas. Since the other acrobats had settled down in Australia, he decided to return to Africa and train acrobats to replace his troupe.

He settled on Tanzania, a country with a longstanding acrobatic tradition; as a socialist country under Julius Nyerere, it had an acrobatic cultural exchange program with China. Having trained the Hakuna Matata acrobats, however, he found that the casino only wanted the original performers.

With a troupe of trained acrobats but no American tour, he set up one of the first African circus and acrobatics websites, in the early days of the internet, which was so successful that he got jobs from around Africa and the Middle East.

The troupe soon attracted the interest of Matthias Hoffmann, former manager of Michael Jackson and Luciano Pavarotti, who gave Ruddle the idea that evolved into Cirque Africa. Since then, the school has trained more than 150 students, many from the slums of Dar-es-Salaam. Most of the money from the circus goes back into the school, to which Ruddle hopes to add an academic side.

Both circuses will delight audiences; the Great Moscow Circus continues its tradition of quality entertainment, mixing old favourites with newer acts, while the younger Cirque Africa is a bold and exciting display of vitality, discipline and skill.