VOA慢速英语:What Is the Future of the Circus in America?

Many Americans think a circus must have elephants, lions, dancing bears and acrobats.But circuses are changing.
许多美国人认为马戏团里肯定有大象、狮子、跳舞的熊和杂技演员。但马戏团正在改变。

In May, after traveling the country for almost 150 years, the large Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus will close.
五月份，在全国巡回演出近150年的大马戏团林林兄弟、巴纳姆安培以及贝利马戏团将关闭。

But different kinds of circuses are still successful.They include Cirque du Soleil.It combines music, acrobatics and story-telling.
但另样的马戏团仍然获得成功。太阳马戏就是其中一个。它将音乐、杂技和讲故事糅合在一起。

Adam Woolley operates Circus Now, a non-profit group that supports efforts by circus performers to combine traditional circus skills like acrobatics, juggling and the trapeze with storytelling.
亚当·伍利在经营“扬帆”马戏团，这是一个非营利组织，支持马戏表演者努力将杂技，杂耍和空中飞人这样的传统马戏团技巧同讲故事结合在一起。

Woolley says circuses have been changing for many years by increasingly telling stories.
伍利说多年来马戏团改变了很多，越来越喜欢讲故事。

“Circus artists have been producing new and incredible circus acts and apparatuses and shows that have an artistic context and theatrical storylines, or well-drawn characters.And this has been happening around the world for the past 10, 15 years or so.”
“马戏艺术家一直在创造不可思议的新型杂技形式，设备以及表演，这些表演有一个艺术情境与故事剧情，或者是形象鲜明的角色。而在过去的10到15年里，全球各地一直在上演这样的故事。”

One of those circuses is the Race Horse Company from Finland.It was part of the Circus Now festival in New York this month.
其中的一个马戏团是来自芬兰的“赛马”公司。该杂技团参加了这个月纽约举行的“扬帆”马戏团节。

Acrobat Rauli Kosonen started the circus with a few other performers nine years ago.
杂技演员劳利·科索宁九年前与其他几个演员成立了马戏团。

“I think it’s really pure art form, in the sense that you can really feel the risks—there’s a lot of risks,so you can get a lot of adrenaline while you watch it if there is kind of tricks that make your heart bounce.Because it’s real.They can see that if they make a mistake, they might get hurt.So, I guess that’s always been why circus is appealing.It reminds us that, uh, we’re humans.”
“我认为这是一种纯粹的艺术形式，你能实实在在地感受到风险——存在很多风险，所以你看马戏时如果有种让你心跳的特技，你会肾上腺素飙升。因为眼前看到的是真实的。观众看得到如果表演者出错就会受伤。所以我想这就是为什么马戏团很吸引人。它提醒我们，呃，我们是人类。”

Kosonen has been injured many times during his performances.
科索宁曾在表演中多次受伤。

“Well, I had three operations and its part of the job; sometimes you don’t get lucky.”
“嗯，我做了三次手术，受伤是工作的一部分，有时你不走运。”

Kendall Rileigh is one of the founders of New York’s Only Child Aerial Theatre.He says, with his group, telling a story, or a narrative, is even more important than the skills of performing in a circus.He says the skills the performers learn are designed to drive and support the story.
肯德尔·瑞雷是纽约“唯一儿童空中剧院”的创始人。他说和团队一起讲述一个故事，甚至比马戏团的表演技巧更加重要。他说，表演者学习的技巧是为了推动和支持故事的。

In a former factory in Brooklyn, Rileigh’s performers are preparing for the latest show—called “Asylum.”
在布鲁克林以前的一个工厂里，瑞雷的表演者们正在准备最近的新节目--“庇护”。

Co-founder Nicki Miller says there is a story, but none of the performers speaks.The story is told through acrobatics, dance, music and projected images and shadow.
联合创始人尼基·米勒说，虽然马戏表演者们没有说话，但有个故事贯穿始终。这个故事是通过杂技，舞蹈，音乐和投影的图像和阴影来呈现的。

“We would describe it as a theater piece that includes a lot of aerial work, dance, some recorded music, some live music and overhead projection and shadow.So, the story is told, rather than through dialogue, through the conversation of all of those theatrical vocabularies, instead.”
“我们将它描述为一个戏剧作品，其中包括大量的空中工作，舞蹈，一些录制的音乐，一些现场音乐以及头顶上的投影和阴影。因此，故事的讲述是通过所有那些戏剧词汇的交流，而不是通过对话。

Adam Woolley says the Only Child and Race Horse performers simply want to entertain people.
亚当·伍利说，“唯一儿童”和“赛马”马戏团的表演者们只是想娱乐大众。

“With lots of practice and hard work, we can accomplish the impossible.That’s the core idea that everyone in circus believes in and that everyone in circus tries to impart to the audiences,is that ‘I have dedicated my life to this seven minutes of performance and honed my skill to the place where I’m going to accomplish something in front of you now that you did not think could be done.’”
通过努力及大量的练习，我们可以实现不可能的事。这是每个在马戏团的人秉持的核心理念，他们试图传达给观众的是“我已经全身心地投入到这七分钟的表演，我的技能娴熟，要在现场的你们面前完成一些你们认为不可能做到的事情。”

I’m John Smith.
我是约翰·史密斯。