Cirque Du Soleil

A circus featuring mind-boggling human achievements, spectacular performances and dazzling sets vs. beaten-down elephants, whipped tigers and creepy clowns?  Cirque du Soleil wins hands down.  Katie Moore, Baltimore

For its new album, Plain White T's looked to the circus for inspiration. The French-Canadian circus, no less. Before he started writing "The Wonders of the Younger," lead singer Tom Higgenson had gone to see "O" by Cirque du Soleil, a show that revolves around a million-gallon pool. Acrobats pull all sorts of synchronized stunts under and above the water. Higgenson was awed. "It flooded me with memories of my youth — it reminded me of movies like "The Goonies" and "Back to the Future" and that feeling of 'wow,'" he said.

Not all the sights at Cirque du Soleil's "Kooza" were onstage. Just check out 20-year-old Allie Bulmer, who was in the opening-night audience. The Montgomery College student and waitress loves watching current trends and adapting them to her "sophisticated, sexy and a little bohemian" style. But, this Damascus resident is no fashion fascist. "Everyone has their own style. The fashion police may say don't do that, but let people do [what they want]. If it's last season and you like it, that's fine.

Who could have predicted that a student at St. John's Elementary School would one day beat out future-heartthrob Patrick Dempsey of Grey's Anatomy fame in an international juggling contest? Or that the same boy would appear on The Tonight Show at age 11, leaving guest host Joan Rivers nearly speechless at his skill and adroit observations? Or that he would juggle his way into history as the holder of a dozen world records and is now a featured performer with the Cirque du Soleil? All of that happened to Anthony Gatto, a former Ellicott City resident who is touring with the Quebec-based circus, which opened Thursday for a three-week stint in Baltimore.

At 4 p.m. on a Tuesday, when most 12-year-olds are starting their homework, Natasha Patterson is under the big top, rehearsing one of her routines. Patterson, the youngest member of Cirque du Soleil's Kooza tour, stands at the end of a Rockettes-like line and kicks her legs up past her chin. For her, this is the easy part. Tonight, when Kooza makes its Baltimore debut, Patterson will do a handstand on top of another girl's stomach. "She's not your usual 12-year-old," said Maxime Charbonneau, the tour's publicist.

The acrobats are lining up at Camden Yards. The elephants will gather at 1st Mariner Arena. Clowns can be found at the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore will become one big circus this winter and spring, with an unprecedented number of events celebrating life in, around and under The Big Top. The list includes a circus-themed exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Art, a "perverse" circus show at Theatre Project, and touring productions from both the Cirque...

Thrills and chills at Cirque du Soleil? Sure. But as a cold April greets the performance troupe on its first-ever Baltimore stop, the spine-tingling starts long before the show does. But it's Thursday, the day before opening night, and there is little time to fret about the weather. The pavement upon which the big top is raised is but 6 weeks old. The usual setup for the circus' Dralion show is 11 days; this time, by necessity, it will be six. The buzz that hangs over Harbor Point has been audible since the city announced in February that the show would open on the site of the former AlliedSignal chemical plant - partly to market the plot as safe, sound and ready to become a key part of the Inner Harbor.

In an effort to ease the public onto a formerly polluted industrial site that juts into the Inner Harbor, developers who plan on building offices and shops there will first play host to a popular Canadian troupe of performers. Mayor Martin O'Malley plans to announce Feb. 5 that the Cirque du Soleil will perform on the former AlliedSignal chromium plant site under tents from April 11 to 27. The shows will be the first major attraction held on the site since a lengthy process of burying and capping toxic waste was completed in June 1999.