Flea circuses 跳蚤马戏团

by Nik Peachey

A good circus has always built its reputation on its ability to amaze and entertain and what could be more amazing than a flea circus? But does such a thing really exist and can fleas really be taught to perform circus tricks?
一个好的马戏团的名声总是建立在给观众带来震撼且精彩的表演。还有什么比跳蚤马戏团更让人激动的事吗？但是这样的事情真的存在吗？跳蚤马戏团杂技炫酷的杂技是如何被训练出来的？

Many British people of my generation probably remember watching their first flea circus on Michael Bentine's Potty Time. Potty Time was a children's TV programme which featured comedian Michael Bentine and a group of puppets. Even as a child I never once thought that the flea circus which was featured on his show involved real fleas, and quite probably it didn't, so imagine my surprise when I read an article in a British newspaper about a group of performing fleas being denied entry to the UK by customs officers.
在我的那个年代，许多英国人也许记得他们在麦克•尔本廷的Potty Time观看他们的第一场跳蚤马戏团。Potty Time是一个儿童电视节目，以迈克尔本廷和一群木偶为主。甚至少儿时期我也从来没想过跳蚤马戏团节目有真的跳蚤。而且当时非常惊讶的是，我在读报纸时知道英国一马戏团在入境时竟然被英国海关拒绝。

The fleas and their trainer, Professor Maria Fernanda Cordoso, had been on their way to perform at the Edinburgh Festival, one of Scotland's most famous arts festivals, when customs officials decided that the Australian fleas in her troupe were illegal immigrants and would have to be sent back. According to the article, the trainer then had to find other local fleas and train them to perform the same act.
跳蚤马戏团和他们的训练者，玛利亚教授，正准备奔赴爱丁堡艺术节的路上。那是苏格兰最有名的艺术节，而海关认定澳大利亚的马戏团是非法移民者，必须遣返。文章说到，训练者只能找当地的马戏团，并训练它们表演同样的动作。

On reading the article I decided to investigate more and discovered that flea circuses have a long history originating in England in the 16th century. They had something of a golden age in the 1830s when L. Bertolotto set up his flea exhibitions in London. His exhibitions featured a flea orchestra playing flea music, fleas playing card games, fleas dancing in dresses and even fleas that could pull miniature coaches! Flea circuses later became a regular feature of carnivals and circus side shows in the US and as late as the mid-1950s there was still a flea circus near Times Square in New York.
读完那篇文章，我决定深入调查，并惊奇的发现跳蚤马戏团竟然可追溯到17世纪。它们是19世纪40年代黄金时代的产物，当初贝托罗陀在伦敦建立了第一个跳蚤表演。他的展示以跳蚤乐团表演，纸牌表演，以及跳蚤盛装跳舞为主，甚至还有跳蚤花车游行。跳蚤马戏团后来成为美国常规的嘉年华活动，到了20世纪50年代中期，纽约时代广场上也有一个跳蚤马戏团。

Training fleas can be very difficult, but there are a few methods that have proven successful. You can limit the height of their jump, if you put a glass ceiling above them, as they don't like to bump their heads. There are also chemicals that they don't like. These can be put on a small ball and put among a group of fleas. The fleas will push the ball away with their legs and give the illusion that they are playing football. Fleas are also very sensitive to heat and light and this can be used to manipulate the fleas to give the appearance that they are well-trained performers. It's also believed that the flea orchestras of the past were in fact live fleas that were glued to their seats. The majority of fleas in the flea circus are, however, dead. They can be attached to their circus equipment and manipulated with the use of magnets. This has the added benefit that fleas, which have a very short life, then don't need to be continuously trained and replaced.
训练跳蚤很困难，但是有几个被证实过的成功案例，你可以放一个天花板在它们头上，这样你就可以限制他们跳的高度了，这是因为它们不喜欢撞到头。有趣的是他们还有不喜欢的化学物质。在一群跳蚤里放进一个小球。跳蚤会用脚推球，人们会以为它们似乎在踢足球。跳蚤也对温度和光很敏感，利用这点可以控制跳蚤，以此来证明它们有受到较好的训练。过去，跳蚤会被粘在椅子上。但是，绝大多数的跳蚤会在这个过程中死掉。它们会被磁铁操控。不过这倒有个好处是，跳蚤的寿命很短，这样就不用不断被训练和替换了。

So how did something as unlikely as a flea circus become a major event at one of Britain's most prestigious performing arts festivals? Well Cordoso's flea act sounds truly incredible, even by circus standards. Her fleas perform in miniature costumes created with the help of Philadelphia's Fabric Workshop and Museum. They tango, walk tightropes, perform trapeze acts and Brutus the strongest flea on earth is even shown pulling a train. The high point of the performance is the projection of a film which was made using special lenses to magnify the fleas' feats to huge proportions and features a tribute to the Fearless Alfredo who is shown diving from a great height into a thimble of water and tragically missing. Perhaps even more incredible is the trainer herself. The exotically beautiful Colombian-born Maria Fernanda Cordoso is a sculptor, installation artist and graduate of Yale University. She spent four years researching the lost art of flea training and is now regarded as a world expert. She appears at the performances in a brightly coloured shimmering costume with a magnifying visor and fires flea cannon balls into a tiny flea net. The performance also features the fleas feeding from her bare arm.
那么，像跳蚤马戏团这样不太可能的事情都演变成英国最有名的表演艺术盛会，这是如何做到的？克多索的跳蚤表演听起来很棒，甚至是以马戏团的标准来说。她们的跳蚤表演穿着漂亮的微型衣服，这些衣服均由费城纺织品作坊和博物馆制作。它们跳探戈，走钢丝，表演飞人和布鲁特斯。世界上最强壮的跳蚤甚至可以拉动一列火车。表演的高潮是使用特殊镜头，把跳蚤放大近距离观看、无畏者阿尔弗雷多从一个相当高的地方潜入水中并下落不明。也许最棒的是训练者是她们自己本人。玛利亚出生在哥伦比亚，她是一个雕刻家，装置艺术家，并且是耶鲁大学的研究生，他花了四年的时间研究跳蚤失传的训练法。在这个领域，她在世界可谓专家。她穿着鲜艳且闪闪发光的服装进行表演，手持放大镜，并借用太阳光点燃小小跳蚤炮弹。表演中还展现了跳蚤在她赤裸的臂膀上喂食的场景。

Well, if this article has left you itching to find out more, here are some little known facts about fleas:
好吧，如果这篇文章挑起你对跳蚤的兴趣，来看看这些关于跳蚤的小知识。

• There is a flea in a Kiev museum that wears horseshoes made of real gold.

• 在基辅博物馆有一只脚踩纯金马蹄铁的跳蚤。

• A flea can pull up to 160,000 times its own weight.

• 一只跳蚤可以拉得动160,000倍自身重量的物品。

• A flea can jump over 150 times its own size. If a man had the same strength, he could jump over St Paul's Cathedral.

• 一只跳蚤可以跳过它自己身长150倍的距离。 如果一个人有类似的技能，他可以跳到圣保罗大教堂。

• When jumping, the flea accelerates 50 times faster than the space shuttle.

• 跳跃时，跳蚤可瞬时加速50倍，比航天飞机还快。

• A flea can jump 30,000 times without a break.

• 一只跳蚤能跳30000次，中间不休息。

• Dead fleas dressed as wedding couples were popular collectors' items in the 1920s.

• 20世纪20年代流行收藏打扮成结婚夫妇的死跳蚤。

• Fleas are attracted by carbon dioxide.

• 跳蚤喜欢二氧化碳。

• Fleas alternate the direction of their jumps.

• 跳蚤可自我调整跳跃的方向。