She began performing professionally ten years ago, at the age of 10, after her mother realized that Lunga possessed the same talent as her great-grandmother, who also performed as a contortionist in South Africa. “It’s a gift from God,” her mother says, getting emotional, before quickly adding that while the gift does seem to run in the family, “I never thought to try it myself; I fear I’d break myself.”

Two troupes from China are the final acts to each show, and one, from the Cirque de Wuqiao takes first prize with their acrobatic feats.

Melaku Lissanu is the first Ethiopian to perform at Cirque de Demain, and he wows the audience with his reverse-juggling act. I ask him backstage what the white powder is on his dressing-room table, and he laughs that it is “important to keep my act going,” before pausing to explain that it is talcum powder.

Johan Wellton, a Swedish juggler, dates a contortionist. “I think it’s the only type of relationship I could make work,” he says. “Who else would understand the devotion to the odd things we circus performers must do to create our acts? Plus, it motivates me when I am practicing juggling for hours, and I can look up and see her dangling from the air in some crazy pose.”

Eike von Stuckenbrok, of Germany, competed with his mannequin act, a creative meditation on human contact set to Radiohead’s “Creep.” (Watch here.)

His father built the mannequin for the show. “Like everything, the performing life has good points and bad points. Often times performing is fun and challenging, but I don’t like when I get injured,” Stuckenbrock, 20, says before rattling off a list of recent injuries: a broken bone, torn ankle ligament, and injured back.

Stuckenbrok wins a bronze medal. One of the good points of his day.

A large number of the young performers are French themselves, as France has the most circus schools in the world, five-hundred, and the oldest circus school organizations. Why such a vibrant circus tradition?

“There’s a love of the arts that is special to French culture,” one spectator tells me before recalling that it was King Louis XIV who encouraged his citizens to “play for me.” “To be entertained and escape one’s worries is very French.”

It doesn’t hurt that French circus students are paid well, either. Circus students are entitled to the same 600 to 800 Euro monthly living stipend as all other students. “In England, I wouldn’t get this kind of support to be in circus school,” says Matthew, one of the French circus immigrants. “It would cost me 7,000 British pounds to attend circus school in England each year, and here in France, I am paid 600 Euros a month to go to a circus school.”

It’s not only a student crowd that is attracted to France’s circus culture. Sitting outside of the stage are a number of circus model collectors, who proudly display their collections. “It quickly starts to fill up parts of the house and the garage,” one collector of twenty-five years laughs.

It’s part of their culture that these French people wouldn’t imagine any differently.

Getting There: Take the number 8 metro to Liberte. Reserve tickets on-line at: www.cirquededemain.com

There’s no need to take many steps in Parisian winters. There’s stimulation to be had in most places you are.

Strasbourg hosts the oldest Christmas market in France, in no small doubt because it was once a German city.

But the markets in Strasbourg, while still similar to the German ones, have that distinctive French flair: more artistic interpretation, more celebratory music, more hyperbole: Strasbourg calls itself “The Capital of Christmas.”

One thing that was also distinctive, but not in the best way, was France’s version of German gluwhein. The “Vin Chaud” I had was sweeter but weaker.

Having not sufficiently warmed us up, a friend and I entered the Temple Neuf, where a choir led the parish in French and German carols.