Flying Superkids in Aarhus: When 40 young people take you into a community

Published: 19.05.2026

Boy does somersaults over the trampoline at the Flying Superkids show while a group of children in colorful everyday clothes dance and cheer

by: Christina Hazelden - Photo: Flying Kids - Paid collaboration with Flying Superkids

You find your place in the tent. The children sit next to you and can't keep their feet still. The lights dim just as quietly. There's a rustle through the rows, that special rustle that only happens right before a show starts, and you feel it yourself, even though you're an adult. You're sitting right next to the stage. It's built that way and there are no bad seats. You're so close that you can see the faces of the young people as they come in one by one.

Flying Superkids gets underway

The first thing you notice isn't the many tricks in the air. It's the joy in the management, because it's completely genuine. The gymnasts smile at each other, they push each other in a break between two numbers, one drops something and picks it up without it disrupting anything in the show. It's not a choreographed joy. It's the kind of joy you only get when you've been together on something long enough that it's become a lifelong friendship.
The kids clap and a parent next to you sits with his mouth open. It's the kind of evening that everyone remembers.

Flying Superkids performs in the Paladsteltet in Aarhus with jumping acts, fireworks and a full audience in the hall.

Behind the joy lies a farm in Aarhus V

This show doesn't come out of nowhere. It comes from a farm in Aarhus V, where Lars Godbersen's father bought a disused farm in the 80s and converted it into a training center. It's where the family has lived. It's where over 40 young gymnasts train. It's where Josefine, the choreographer, and Jens, the technical manager, bring their two children in a caravan when the show rolls out. It's where windmills and flip-flops and strength training are practiced every week, year-round.

When you walk through the door at Gymnastikgården and enter the association's own hall on a completely ordinary afternoon, you meet a group of young people practicing. You can hear them laughing and having a good time. One explains something that went wrong. Another imitates it, and then they laugh together. It's the laughter that follows you into the tent later in the summer. It doesn't get packed away when the stage lights come on and you can feel it as an audience all the way beyond the edge of the stage.

The imperfect is beautiful

In this year's show, Flying Superkids have deliberately cultivated something they themselves call imperfection. Lars Godbersen talks about how difficult it can be to stick with something that takes time to learn. Children today are used to things happening quickly. A computer game gives you something back immediately. A series is finished and exciting from the first second. And then suddenly you have to stand in a gym and practice the same windmill over and over again before your body understands it. It takes something, and that's exactly where Gymnastikgården wants to meet the children.

They show the kids that it's cool to be able to do something you've practiced to learn. That it can go wrong sometimes, and that it's part of the journey. It's the kind of choice that makes you come out of the tent with a little lump in your throat that you can't quite explain.

Two young gymnasts do a backflip across the stage while the rest of the Flying Superkids team laughs and gestures to the audience in red and blue lights.

It comes from them themselves.

August is 20 years old and part of Flying Superkids. He has been at Gymnastikgården for 10 years, and is one of the oldest on the team now. When he was younger, he thought a lot about it when he made mistakes. Today, he thinks something completely different about it, he says with a smile.

“If I fall, then I've succeeded. Then you can actually see how difficult it is. So that everyone doesn't just think that it's all set up. Sometimes you actually get a bigger compliment when you fall than when you do well.”

He tells it as if it's the most natural thing in the world. And that's perhaps the most important sentence you'll take home from the show. A young person who has learned that falling and getting back up is a natural part of life.

August also talks about the trips when they are out with their shows. About the trips, where you really get to know each other, because the training is divided by age, but on the trip you are together across the board. The big ones are together with the little ones. Friendships are built that everyone takes with them into adulthood.

The Superkids Effect

This feeling of unity is no coincidence. Lars calls it the superkids effect. It's something that this team can do. One for all, all for one. Both big and small. It happens when something is difficult and the young people have to solve it together.

“The bonds that are made here are lifelong friendships.”

He mentions three friends who met at Gymnastikgården and have built a business together. They are still friends and now business partners. They find solutions when things get tough. Because that's what they learned from their time as Flying Superkids gymnasts.

Two Flying Superkids gymnasts fly horizontally through the air in gold costumes while the team cheers them on in red stage lights

What awaits you in the tent

They set up the huge tent themselves. It's the only one in Northern Europe where there are no masts in sight. It's built like an amphitheatre, and the seats are pushed towards the stage. Mobile stages move up and down. Big screens, sound, lighting, everything is high quality, but that's not what Lars wants you to remember after seeing the show.

It's the young people who make this show special. It's not Chinese artists balancing cups on their heads on unicycles. It's normal kids from a normal school, with normal everyday lives, who have learned to fly together. That's what you can recognize yourself in. And that's why it hits.

The show lasts 80 minutes without intermission.

Before and after the performance, the activity park outside the tent is open. Twelve large trampolines are ready. Your child can try some of the things they have just seen on stage, or are about to see. Jump high, land and try again. Many children find that they want more. Lars says that some of their new members at Gymnastikgården come that way. They have sat in the tent, seen a show, tried the trampoline afterwards and made up their mind.

After the show, all the superkids come out. They greet their audience, sign autographs and have their photos taken. For them, it's not a duty, because it means something special to meet those who have seen them on stage. That a child stands and asks for an autograph. For the superkids, it's just as big as it is for the fans.

Two young gymnasts soar through the air above the stage at the Flying Superkids show

An elite sport, and something more than that

There is something that Gymnastikgården can do that not many others can. It can give children a community that lies outside of school. A place where they are met by someone who demands something of them. Where they become good at something over time because someone has made demands of them and at the same time shown them that they are cared for. It is elite sport, but it is also something else. It builds a self-esteem from within that you cannot give a child from the outside.

Lars talks about it with a seriousness that you can feel. Children need a community with clear boundaries, so they know where they stand. He calls it security through boundaries. When a child learns that they can stand on a stage with 1300 people in the hall. Packing their own bag after a show on the other side of the world. Solving a problem together with friends when something goes wrong. It's something that follows them for the rest of their lives.

The superkids effect that Lars talks about begins the first day a child steps into the Gymnastikgården. It continues into the tent and follows them home.

You leave the show later in the evening. You talk about what you just saw. Your child may already be asking if they can start themselves. You smile because you have just experienced something special. You have seen young people who have learned that they are good enough, even when they fail. You have sat in a tent with 1300 others, and you have felt how joy can spread all the way to the outermost tent flap.

You don't have to wait for the summer show to get a feel for the place. The gymnasium welcomes guests, and you are always welcome to drop by and watch the young people train. It's a good way to get a feel for the atmosphere if you go with someone at home who might want to join. Contact the association and find out when there is training.

This article is a paid collaboration with Flying Superkids. It is written based on Christina's visit to Gymnastikgården and an interview with Lars. Aarhus Inside has had full editorial freedom over the content.