Cole Bros. brings the thrills of the circus to town

The elements for a proper circus atmosphere still involve pretty girls, funny clowns and exotic animals, said Christopher Connors, the performance director for Cole Bros. Circus of the Stars.

The circus company - in existence since the 1880s - will hoist its Big Top tent on the parking lot of the Fingerlakes Mall next week. But the circus has also had to update to appeal to audiences getting bored with the long-standing traditions of tigers opening the show and the daredevil being shot out of the cannon at show's end.

In the circus' modernizing experiment of recent years, it eliminated most of the animal acts, but audiences cried that it wasn't a circus without the elephants, Connors said.