Physical Education has been showing an exponential growth in the application of circus activities as programmatic content, and a consequently increase of academic production. The objective of this study was to identify the "state of the art" when it comes to the circus activities and physical education through a literature review of academic-scientific production, nationally and internationally. Results indicate that much of the literature is presented as experience reports and manuals, highlighting the technical and pedagogical procedures. In general we found limited conceptual discussions, and very few studies that propose advances beyond the common sense and pedagogical romanticism.182149168