Angelia Pfeifer’s ankles were all that kept her from plummeting to the ground. Her feet and ankles hooked around acrobat rings as she twisted, swung and balanced in the air. Her seemingly easy, graceful movements were supposed to imitate the calmness of the sea.

And for 7-year-old Olivia Scidel, Angelia the acrobat was the highlight of the afternoon.

“(My favorite part) was when the girl was on the rings,” she said.

About 125 people watched Pfeifer and fellow troupe members at the sold-out performance of “Gulliver’s Circus” at Noyes Cultural Arts Center on Sunday. The circus was performed by the Flying Griffin Circus, the professional troupe of the Actors Gymnasium, a not-for-profit circus and performing arts school.

“Gulliver’s Circus” is based loosely on Jonathan Swift’s “Gulliver’s Travels.” In the circus performance, the character Gulliver meets an eccentric circus troupe whose ring master has just been flattened by an audience member.

As the troupe struggles without its leader to create a performance for the audience, Gulliver, with Swift’s novel in hand, tells them to use his story.

Primarily a comedy, the circus uses both physical and verbal humor.

“I thought it was very funny,” Scidel said.

Although aimed at the young families that made up most of the audience, the story also has more adult overtones, such as the performer obsessed with having 17 of Gulliver’s children.

Circus acts and acrobatic feats give visual interpretations of scenes from the book. When the Lilliputians want to elect officials, they hold a “rope dancing” contest to flashing lights and techno music, with performers balancing and spinning on hanging ropes.

On the Flying Island where Gulliver encounters beautiful women, female performers slide down from cloths hanging from the ceiling, twisting them around their bodies to create makeshift cloth chairs as they hang upside-down.

The performance ends more happily than the book. For the finale, performers catapult into the air, land on other performers and on chairs held in the air. Performers then bang on drums and hit their drumsticks together.

“I liked the end part where they did all the drums,” said 9-year-old Meaghan Falvey, who was attending the circus for the second time.

Scidel also said she enjoyed the show. “It had lots of lively things,” she said.