News for January 5, 2006
In a Daring Leap, Ringling Loses Its Three Rings* [December 31, 2005]
And now, ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, step right up and meet the no-ring circus.
For the first time in its history, the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will present a new show to its audiences without three rings, or two - or even one.
When the 136th edition of the circus opens on Wednesday at the St. Pete Times Forum here in Tampa, where Ringling maintains its winter quarters, the elephants, clowns, aerialists and acrobats will roam an arena floor. In as big a departure, the show will have a story line instead of being simply a cavalcade of acts.
The changes seem to echo the format of the circus’s new-age rival, Cirque du Soleil, which in a few decades has grown into as mammoth an enterprise as Ringling Brothers, though the promoters of both shows discourage the comparison. Instead, Kenneth Feld, Ringling’s producer and chief executive, attributes the overhaul to market research: The circus’s family audiences say their lives are already three-ring circuses, so they want something less distracting. And “they also wanted to connect with a story in an emotional way,” Mr. Feld said.
Arlette Gruss, 75, ran French circus [January 3, 2006]
PARIS — Arlette Gruss, an animal trainer who went on to run her own traveling circus, died Monday, her troupe said. She was 75.
Gruss died of cancer at her home in Fontaine-Saint-Martin, in the Sarthe region of western France, said Dominique Texier, tour director of the troupe.
Born into a circus family, Gruss was a well-known animal trainer — especially panthers — who retired from the ring in 1984 to found a touring troupe that bears her name.
“We all admired the incredible courage and presence of this panther trainer whose love of animals was as strong as her passion for the circus arts and their constant renewal,” said French Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres.
From center stage to center ring [January 5, 2006]
Jennifer Fuentes has been on the track to show biz success since she was an American Idol contender three years ago.
For now, she’s also on the track of the railroad. She just signed on for a two-year stint as the featured vocalist and co-ringmaster for the 136th edition of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus.
La Crosse family seeks carnival worker, DNA testing to find missing pug [January 5, 2006]
“My pug (Bosley) was taken by a carnival worker!!”
On Oct. 9, the fawn-colored pug managed to find his way out of the fenced yard at the Lundts’ Charles Street home.
Some neighborhood kids said Bosley followed them to the North Side Oktoberfest grounds, where the event was in its final day.
There, the kids told Lundt, they saw a carnival worker tuck little Bosley into a trailer.
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