From Alexandra to the aerial hoop: a Johannesburg circus trains jobless young people for the ring

<strong>Brian Ngobese</strong> grew up in <strong>Alexandra</strong>, one of Johannesburg's poorest townships, and found the circus almost by accident. Now he performs on the aerial hoop, part of a social circus programme that trains jobless young people for paid work under the lights.

Ngobese is 29. He grew up in Alexandra, a crowded township only a few kilometres from the glass towers of Sandton, Africa's richest square mile. Poverty there is high. Across South Africa, 45% of people aged 18 to 34 were out of work in 2025. He came to aerial acrobatics without planning to, and stayed.

His training comes from a social circus programme run by organiser Michelle Fok and co-founder Orlando Vargas. Vargas founded The Cirk, a professional Johannesburg company that mixes aerial and ground acts, in 2018. He has said the programme began because South Africa has so few places that teach circus formally. For years the main door open to young South Africans was Zip Zap Circus in Cape Town, more than a thousand kilometres away.

The programme is meant to lead to a career. Participants can go on to teach, or take paid work with production companies or with The Cirk itself. The organisers want it to pay its own way through training, performances and other circus work instead of relying only on donors. For now the numbers are small. Only four participants each year receive full support.

Zenzele Letsoela, 38, also grew up in Alexandra. He trains in ballet and in pantsula, the fast footwork dance that grew up in the townships in the 1950s and 1960s, partly in response to forced removals. He is afraid of heights. He performs aerial acrobatics anyway.

Megan Nielsen, 22, hangs by her braided hair from carabiners on a 5-metre rope and performs from there, her whole body held by her hair.

Alexandra has carried ambition before. Proclaimed a township in 1912, it was one of the few places near Johannesburg where Black South Africans could own land outright before apartheid laws took effect. In 1941 a young Nelson Mandela, just arrived in the city, rented a room there.

Ngobese puts the purpose of the work simply.

Fok sees the same thing in every rehearsal, and she thinks the missing piece is opportunity, not ability. "There's so much talent and so much skill in this country," she said. "We just need a platform."

"We just want to show people that we can make it out of the township."