FUNUNDRUM OPENS TONIGHT IN L.A.

Circus opens tonight at Staples Center
By Steven Herbert, City News Service
Posted: 07/14/2010 07:24:05 AM PDT
The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey circus begins a five-day run at Staples Center tonight with a show inspired by the 200th anniversary of the birth of its founder, P.T. Barnum.
"Barnum's FUNundrum" features 130 performers from six continents, including cowboys, pirates, mermaids along with the clowns and elephants Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey has long been famed for, in an attempt to answer the question, "What special wonders create `The Greatest Show on Earth?"'
"When we were creating `Barnum's FUNundrum' we knew we wanted to create a show that was so big, so grand, so spectacular honoring Barnum's 200th birthday," said Alana Feld, who is producing the circus along with her sister Nicole.
"We searched the globe and looked for the most tremendous, the most outrageous, the most unique acts we could find."
Those acts include The Flying Caceres, attempting a rarely accomplished quadruple somersault on an arena-sized trapeze; The Puyang Troupe from China, who perform on a two-tiered trampoline; and the Body Benders, who fit three women into a cube the size of a milk crate.
Other featured acts include Mighty Meetal, billed as the world's strongest man, able to lift more than 1,200 pounds; seven motorcyclists riding in a steel globe; and the husband-and-wife hand balancers known as Duo Fusion, where the wife does the heavy lifting.
An hour before the show, the public can come to the arena floor to meet performers, get autographs and see Kelly Ann an elephant who paints.
The Staples Center stop for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey will mark the return to performing of its littlest elephant, Baby Barack, who walks the ring with his mother Bonnie.
Barack had returned to the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Center for Elephant Conservation in Florida after being diagnosed with a form of elephant herpes virus earlier this year. He was successfully treated and declared healthy by center veterinarians. The cause of the virus in elephant calves is not known.
"He is a special little guy," Nicole Feld said of Barack, who was born at 11:50 p.m. Jan. 19, 2009, the eve of the inauguration of Barack Obama as president.
"There's no place else in the world where you can see a beautiful baby elephant with his mother. He has an extraordinary bond that he has with mother. It's a really precious moment."
The Feld sisters are the third generation of their family to be involved with Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey. Nicole Feld said her father Kenneth, who produced the circus before becoming chief executive officer of the circus' owner, Feld Entertainment, "thinks we have it tougher because it is harder in this day and age to impress people."
Alana Feld said one of the most challenging aspects of producing the circus is "finding ways to surprise audiences," especially children.
"Kids today are so smart and so sophisticated and they're exposed to so much," she told City News Service.
"Kids are so exposed today to the highest technology in video games, special effects and YouTube. When they come to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey, there's a suspension of belief. We need to keep impressing on kids these are real people doing real things