If you want to see elephants in the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, this is your last chance.
The folks behind the big top, responding to animal-rights activists, are ending elephant performances after more than 130 years. But the elephants are having one last dance through March 6 at the Barclays Center (and at Newark’s Prudential Center, March 9 to 13).
I brought my fourth-grade son, Rahm, to the show, dubbed “Legends,” and he reports: “My favorite act was eight daredevils on motorcycles riding at the same time on every corner of a globe.”
He’s referring to the Torres family, six men and two women, driving 60 mph all at once, inches away from each other inside a globe.
The place became subdued when the elephants arrived with much fanfare and circled a small ring. But spectators were more in awe of the lions and tigers, directed by animal trainer Alexander Lacey.
“It was exciting when the tigers were growling at him,” Rahm says. He also loved the group of male and female Cossacks who jumped on and and off horses galloping around a small ring.
The crowd came alive at certain points, like during the Cossacks’ act, and then dozed at others — until Harlem-raised Ringmaster Johnathan Lee Iverson told everyone to get loud.
The music was certainly loud, despite a small live band being part of the circus.
“It was pretty good, but some of it sounded electronic,” my son notes. And the clowns who performed in between the main acts didn’t make many people laugh.
At the end, I asked Rahm to grade the show, and he said it was between “great and fantastic.” So there is still some magic, even if the legends are changing.
Tickets $15 and up; ringling.com