The purpose of this museum is to show and to describe in an expressive and informative manner the history of the artists, their actions, their life and their past and current performances. It not only honours the glory of some of the greatest, but it also focuses on every other one, whose performances contributed to the fame and the glory of the artists world.

For instance, we can learn about the history of artistic kinds, as the flying trapeze : In the mid-19^th century circuses, new artistic kinds have been developed. The biggest fields were "in the air" acrobatics and the ring, rod and trapeze performances. The trapeze used to be a sport before he became a circus act, and the first flying trapezist, Jules Léotard (see picture), was the son of a sports teacher.

The museum is still recent, since it just opened its doors on September 5, 1997. But everyone here is really ambitious. Indeed, anyone can see traveling expositions round the year, but only a few collections are available permanently as it's the case there. In Klosterfeld, people are in charge of the history of every artistic kind, from cabaret to magic, including variety and, of course, circus. Everyone there gives back the spot circus deserves in the art and culture field, in order to make it popular again.

Anyone can look at pictures, decorations, posters (this one comes from Japan), portraits... Read programs, books, magazines... But also watch movies, listen records... Anyone can discover a good deal of the repertoire of the arts and entertainment, a repertoire which is two centuries old.

Right now, the museum is made of a two-stories exposition hall and four other rooms. In another part of the building, there's a study room, a picture library and a film library.

We can also learn the history of circuses and their big tops, the Sarrasanni for instance : created in 1901, it was one of the most beautiful pre-war circuses. The big top could gather 10.000 spectators. Its big top used to run around the globe. It was finally damaged during a tour in South America, in Sao Paulo : a fire destroyed everything lying inside.

The purpose of the creators of the museum is to make a room dedicated to the glory of artists and the entainment business out of it. This international museum should shortly transform itself into a big center dedicated to every entertainment art. It aims to display even more documents, movies... and to make file, study and reading rooms available. Arts and Science teachers and journalists could then be enabled to realize high quality works.