tcompton@rentonreporter.com<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\nVisually impaired students of the Washington State School for the Blind got a special introduction to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s new circus Barnum Bash on Friday at ShoWare.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The 12 students got to participate in a “Blind Touch Tour” where they were given special access to performers, props, costumes and animals.In this “hands-on” sensory tour, the students got to touch the ring, feathers and jewels of costumes, a lira hoop, Squeeze the Carpet Python and Duchess the Asian elephant and other items that define a circus.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I thought it was a great opportunity for my daughter to be able to experience an elephant,” said Karry Trout, of Olympia. “We read about it in stories, but it’s something she really doesn’t have a concept of unless she’s hands on.”<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/raven.b-it.ca\/portals\/uploads\/kent\/.DIR288\/090712BarnumBash2WEB.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ella Trout was not shy at all about getting to know Duchess, the elephant. Once unencumbered by her walker, Ella latched onto one of Duchess’ legs for a stolen hug.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“She was touching the trunk and it squeezed her finger and she thought that was pretty great,” said Karry Trout, her mother.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is the first time the circus has put on a “Blind Touch Tour” in the area.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
“I’ve been working on behalf of the circus for five years and I’ve been wanting to do one ever since I saw video of one years ago,” said Julie Furlong, communications consultant.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Ringling Bros. typically does a benevolence event in the cities that they perform in.”Kent is the perfect venue for this; it’s small, it’s intimate and it’s very accessible,” said Furlong.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
With 100 people dedicated to the production, 30 performers, Barnum Bash will take over ShoWare Center Friday to Monday.For ticket information visit their website<\/a>.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Visually impaired students of the Washington State School for the Blind got a special introduction to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey’s new circus Barnum Bash on Friday at ShoWare.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":19914,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-19913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19913"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19913"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kentreporter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=19913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}