■ You can thank Canada for Cirque
Eloize, an untraditional circus using
a live band and no animals
By Sara Jarrett
Oregon Daily Emerald
Ameriean-style circuses are a rare breed
indeed — bearded ladies, lion tamers, tight
rope walkers, midgets and other oddities of
the tent city.
That infatuation must be saved for the
backwoods county fairs, however, because a
new big-top is coming to town. Cirque
Eloize, a European-style circus, performs
“Excentricus” at Silva Hall in the Hult Cen
ter for the Performing Arts Friday at 7 p.m.
While this circus doesn’t offer the tradi
tional American carnival favorites, Cirque
Eloize does have its own glamour and
charm. Juggling, dancing, leaping, flipping,
bicycle routines and wire acts set against the
backdrop of a live jazz-rock band provide a
night of family-oriented entertainment. “Ex
centricus” is always animal-free — sorry
kids, no miniature ponies or three-legged
dogs.
Hailing from Quebec, seven graduates of
the Montreal National Circus School creat
ed Cirque Eloize in 1993. The troupe’s name,
Eloize, means “heat lightning” on Quebec’s
Magdalen Islands.
While Cirque Eloize has been compared to
other Canadian circus troupes, this one
stands apart from the competition. Most of
Eloize’s current members have also per
formed with its biggest competitor, Cirque
du Soleil. But while du Soleil prides itself
on a sense of surprise and wonder, Eloize
has this and more, according to the Orange
County (Calif.) Register. By striving for a
sense of intimacy between performers and
audience, its talent stands alone, the news
paper comments.
Within two years of Cirque Eloize’s incep
tion, the troupe embarked on a 125-show
American tour, which ended by opening the
newly restored New Victory Theater on
Broadway in New York.
Cirque Eloize’s visit to Eugene is part of a
world tour that began last fall at the Festival
Fringe in Edinburgh, Scotland. In its promo
tional literature, troupe members maintain
that they are on a mission to popularize and
preserve the living art of the circus, while
bringing this particular style to as many peo
ple as possible, in as many places as possi
ble.
Cirque Eloize has already toured Canada,
America, Europe, Ireland and Asia during its
current tour that numbers 500 venues and
counting. Cirque Eloize also acts as cultural
ambassador for Quebec and Canada wherev
er it goes.
“Cirque Eloize is a punkish anomaly that
manages quite handily with no animals and
precious few props, relying instead on a
jumbo batch of circus craft,” writes The
Courier, in Louisville, Ky.
With live music, re-invention of tradition
al circus acts, humor, sparkle, theater and
dance, this show promises that you won’t
even notice the lack of animals. Tickets
priced at $15 and $20 are available at the
Hult Center ticket office, the EMU Main
Desk or charge-by-phone by calling 682
5000.
Limber acrobats will be on display when Cirque Eloize comes to Eugene’s Hult Center.
Book reviews
continued from page 1
1988. Now well into his fourth
decade as a professional writer,
Harlan Ellison has been on a wave
of literary and social praise.
“Slippage” marks the 70th book
Ellison has written or edited. In
that time, in a career of short sto
ries, screenplays, novellas and es
says, Ellison has won more awards
for than any other living fantasist.
In 1996, Ellison underwent a
quadruple-bypass heart operation
that has cooled his normal, fiery
and raucous persona. This change
is reflected in “Slippage,” which is
full of tales dealing with loss, im
pending doom and regret.
The collection opens with “The
Man Who Rowed Christopher
Columbus Ashore,” a work that
was selected for the Best American
Short Stories in 1996. The follow
ing stories include titles such as
“Anywhere but Here, with Any
body but You,” “Crazy as a Soup
Sandwich” and “Darkness Upon
the Face of the Deep.”
After “The Man Who Rowed
Christopher Columbus Ashore,”
the next-best story comes with “The
Lingering Scent of Wood Smoke.”
Ellison’s Jewish heritage is promi
nent in this tale of lost souls who in
habit the trees of an abandoned for
est, taking vengeance upon their
Nazi murderers.
This collection also features
“Mefisto in Onyx,” an award-win
ning novella that is currently being
a scripted as a major motion pic
ture starring Samuel L. Jackson.
Other highlights include “Key
board,” a short story about a com
puter with vampiric tendencies,
inspired by Ellison’s good friend,
actor Robin Williams.
All in all, this edition of “Slip
page” contains 20 original works, a
lengthy introduction and some of
Ellison’s best writing in over a
decade.
Yael Menahem
Oregon Daily Emerald
Decades after the second wave of
feminism, when women today are
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enjoying a life they weren’t allowed
to live in the past, it’s surprising and
at the same time not so surprising
that abook entitled “What Our Moth
ers Didn’t Tell Us: Why Happiness
Eludes the Modem Woman” has
made its way into the mainstream.
Danielle Crittenden’s book
blames feminism for all of the un
happiness that women over the age
cf 30 are experiencing today and
urges women to marry younger,
have children and go back to the
home. If that doesn’t sound like the
solution to female college students
who aren’t getting a four-year high
er education simply to find a man,
you’re not alone.
The book has come under attack
by outspoken feminists Betty
Friedan and Susan Faludi, among
others, for its message, and the is
sues that Crittenden brings up in
the book are worth writing a whole
other book about.
The problem with the book is not
Crittenden’s views; it’s the fact that
she blames feminism and the sexual
revolution for the unhappiness of the
women that she interviewed. She
bases her study on women who at
tend prestigious colleges, whose
biggest fear is not being asked to the
school dance by a man, and her writ
ing endlessly refers to articles from
fashion magazines such as Cos
mopolitan, Vogue and Mademoiselle,
She writes that the pursuit of a ca
reer, money and independence —
basically what every man has
worked for over the decades—has
led many women to miserable lone
ly lives without a man.
Two problems arise from this be
lief.
First of all, Crittenden general
izes the term “women.” She’s ob
viously referring to white, mid
dle- to upper-class women in this
book, a mistake that feminism
made in the 1960s with the sec
ond wave of feminism, which
mostly dealt with white women’s
problems and ignored other class
es, races and sexes.
Secondly, Crittenden’s urgency
to send women back to the home
and to play their roles as coy
women in society that she believes
will lead men to treat women differ
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ently is ridiculous. She writes as if
women in the Victorian times, who
were expected to be passive and
pure, never had husbands who had
extramarital affairs.
Another ignorant point that Crit
tenden makes is assuming that all
women want a husband, com
pletely dismissing lesbians. She
calls women who identify them
selves as feminists who are les
bians as “oddpersonalities.”
That said, the book should be ti
tled, “...Why Happiness Eludes the
White, Middle-Class, Suburban/City,
Heterosexual Working Woman. ”
The main point that Crittenden
overlooks throughout the whole
book is that without feminism, she
probably wouldn’t be publishing
this book and wouldn’t have a suc
cessful journalistic career — the
whole point of feminism is to give
women opportunities.
“What Our Mothers Didn’t Tell
Us: ...” can frustrate liberal read
ers while its appeal to conservative
men and women may be great. Ei
ther way, it will leave many read
ers provoked and thinking.
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