Jon Burtt is a performer, director, teacher, and scholar working in the Creative Industries. He is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Humanities at Macquarie University in Sydney where he is Course Director of the Master of Creative Industries. His teaching at the university has been recognized with a Vice Chancellor’s Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning. 

Jon began as a performer and artistic director working across interdisciplinary artforms and had considerable critical and public success performing in, and directing, works which have toured widely across Australia and Asia. His Master’s thesis, based on fieldwork in India, was an investigation into the ancient yogic practice of rope and pole Mallakhamb in India. His Doctorate was based on an in-depth study of new cognitive approaches to physical training at the National Circus School in Montreal where he was Researcher-in-Residence. He is now a Research Associate with HUPR, Research Centre for Human Potential in Montreal.

Jon publishes across various research areas in the Creative Industries including circus studies, social circus and circus training in academic journals such as New Theatre Quarterly; Theatre, Dance and Performance Training; and the Journal of Arts and Communities and he was an editor for the journal CALS (Circus Arts, Life and Sciences).

Jon Burtt's co-authored book, Contemporary Circus, was published in 2019 by Routledge, and has been translated into Chinese (2021, Shulin Publishing), with a forthcoming Korean translation (2025, Hyunsilbook) and a 2nd English language edition (2026, Routledge). His most recent co-authored book publication Circus for Social Change: Social Circus in Context (2025, Routledge) investigates the way that Social Circus transforms in response to its immediate environment, and particularly its social, political, and cultural context.