November 22, 2009
UTNE READER

Little Big Top

(Page 4 of 4)

May/June 1996
Marilyn Snell, Utne Reader 
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Cardoso has also used her skills of observation to separate the stars from the riffraff, determining which fleas are the exceptional jumpers and which can be coerced to walk. She says she merely harnesses the innate gifts of the jumpers--who, on a good day, can hop 30,000 times without stopping and who can sail the human equivalent of 1,000 feet in a single bound--but trains her walkers by putting them in a little vial: When they jump they hit their heads on the glass ceiling. 'Very soon they learn their role and place in the circus,' says the deadpan professor.

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The contemporary boot camp Cardoso has devised may seem retrograde and even a little heartless, but she insists that her experiments are not inconsistent with the hoops she herself has had to jump through in life. Raised in a Bogotá suburb by ambitious and successful architect parents who were obsessed with their children's education, Cardoso says her circus represents the kind of 'unnatural and often useless education' we've all been subjected to at one time or another. 'My head has been packed with trivia since I was a kid,' she explains. 'I think that's why I love the fantasy and whimsy of my flea circus. I hate reality, though I was raised to be a nerd and I can't help being curious about it.'

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