A circus is a company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other object manipulation and stunt-oriented artists. The term 'circus' also describes the performance which has followed various formats through its 150-year modern history. Philip Astley is credited with being the 'father' of the modern circus when he opened the first circus in 1768 in England. Early circuses were almost exclusively demonstrations of equestrian skills with a few other types of acts to link the horsemanship performances. Performances developed significantly through the next fifty years, with large scale theatrical battle reenactments becoming a significant feature. The 'traditional' format, whereby a ringmaster introduces a varied selection of acts that mostly perform choreographed acts to traditional music, developed in the latter part of 19th century and continued almost universally to be the main style of circus up until the 1970s.

Circus (stylized CiRcuS) is the second studio album released by Filipino alternative rock group Eraserheads in 1994. Hits from Circus are "Alapaap", "Sembreak", "Kailan" (originally a musical number from the play Manhid by Auraeus Solito), "Magasin", and "With a Smile". It is also the last album of the band to come in vinyl record format.

Circus is a Japanese visual novel studio known for creating adult-oriented bishojo games. In addition to the normal Circus brand name, there are other brand divisions including Circus Northern, Circus Fetish, Circus Metal, and Sanctuary. Circus has also been involved in collaboration projects, creating titles such as True Tears, a collaboration with Broccoli, GameCrab, and Japanese artist Rei Izumi published under the brand La'cryma, and Sora o Tobu, Mittsu no Hoho., an adult-oriented collaboration with Broccoli released under the same brand name.