The space of the Move to Circus Academy first strikes one as unusual. Situated among factories belching smoke in the Emek Hefer Industrial Park, north Netanya, a building that usually serves as a ski simulator is now occupied by children and teens rolling from the ceiling at record speed, suspended by “tissue,” or aerial silk, the flexible fabric used in aerial acrobatics. A girl nearby does somersaults on a trampoline. A boy juggles six balls. A 6-year-old girl swings back and forth on a trapeze, dangling by a leg. All of this is taking place on a weekday morning, while their peers sit in their chairs at schools that “suppress them,” as Shahar Kamay, pedagogical director of Move to Circus, sees it.

There are quite a few places in Israel that teach the circus arts, but none of them do it like Kamay's academy. That Kamay isn’t enthusiastic about the “regular” education system is putting it mildly. His academy challenges the traditional educational system in general, taking it to task, or at least it tries to.

Move to Circus offers more than just afternoon activities. On Tuesdays, there is the option of a full day of studies. Some 35 students, who Kamay says range in age “from 6 to 32,” arrive at the academy at 8:30 a.m. Most of them are teenagers.

The day begins with half an hour of freestyle warm-ups, with some students hanging from a trapeze at all sorts of unusual angles, while others walk a tightrope, perfectly balancing themselves. Three girls climb the aerial silk suspended from the ceiling and at a height of four meters perform a synchronized routine from their show. At one point, the three of them hang by their sheer body weight, entwined in the aerial silk, leaving both arms and legs totally free. To an observer, what they are doing appears to be impossible.