Volume 2, No. 17. September 13, 2002
AZA Report
Step
aside, hippos
Bill
LaMarche thinks visually. The media relations officer for the Oregon Zoo in
Portland also gets into the heads of his zoo’s animals, and the success
of his publicity campaigns hinges on the confluence of those two traits, because
LaMarche knows that what excites the animals makes for great photo ops.
“If we give enrichment treats or devices to the animals that are visible
and can tie that in with our event, then we get press coverage,” LaMarche
said. “(The media) comes up for the enrichment moment and get the video
they can’t live without, and while they are showing the video they get
the message out about the event and they get our conservation mission message
out. It’s win win.”
He put this strategy to use in promoting the first ever ballet performance at
the zoo. As part of the an outreach program, The Pacific Festival Ballet scheduled
performances August 20 and 23 at the Oregon Zoo Amphitheater, a lawn-seating
venue able to seat 3,500 people located next to the Asian elephant enclosure.
“I thought it would be fun to play off these two separate ideas in an unexpected
way, the art of ballet and the size of elephants,” LaMarche said of the
show’s promotion.
LaMarche proposed an enrichment program to the elephant keepers: let them meet
a couple of the ballerinas, and let the media watch the encounter. “The
keepers loved the idea. The elephants had never experienced ballerinas before.”
The costumed ballerinas entered the elephant yard and performed their pirouettes
and demi pliés for the zoo’s four female elephants. The youngest
elephant, Chendra, certainly appeared inspired, doing trunk pirouettes and lifting
her leg to match the moves of the dancers.
Some 1,000 people attended the actual performances, many of them picnic-bearing
families with young girls wearing tu-tus and mimicking on the lawn the ballerina’s
steps on stage. Also attending the performance was Hugo, the bull elephant watching
from his yard and like the little girls lifting his legs and walking backward
and, in a move all of his own, swaying his trunk in time with the piano music.“He
was really, really active during the whole performance,” LaMarche said.
Both The Pacific Festival Ballet and the zoo, which runs a concert series throughout
the summer, were pleased with the shows and feedback. “It’s definitely
worth doing again,” Lamarche said. The elephants, it seems, hope so.
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved