Juggler's World: Vol. 42, No. 2

Notes

Thanks to Dave Jones and Markus Markoni

• Street performers can get help with their scheduling from the twice-annual Street Artists' Guild Newsletter. In it, editor Stephen Baird tracks court cases pertinent to street performing and includes a long list of the street performing legal situation in many cities in the US, Canada and Europe. To join the Folk Arts Network and receive the newsletter, send a $25 check made out to that organization to Baird at Box 570; Cambridge, MA 02238. For newsletters only, the fee is $10 per year. Outside the US, send $15 cash or a postal money order in US funds.

• IJA member and unicycle specialist John Foss was one of the first two Americans ever to perform in the All-Soviet Amateur Circus Festival. Foss and Greg Milstein participated by special invitation of Soyuzgoscirk and Rigas Cirks at the festival in Latvia in late February. Milstein performed as a clown/eccentric character in an act called "Balloon Jazz." Foss performed for three minutes on a single unicycle, demonstrating the skills that won him first place in the 1987 World Unicycling Championships in Tokyo. They also presented official greetings, documents, gifts and an American flag to their Latvian hosts. Their appearance was so successful they were invited to work a regular performance with the Rigas Cirks. Their appearance was arranged by the National Circus Project, a Westbury, N.Y.-based organization they both serve as senior instructors. National Circus Project teaches circus skills, including juggling, to school children.

• Alexander Feldman did a couple of two-week engagements in Auckland, New Zealand, during a three month period early in the year, performing his jester act at the Oriental Market. He will also be seen on New Zealand television through the rest of this year, urging parents to teach their kids about recycling. The public service announcement features Feldman and 10-year-old IJA member Ryan Hoffman juggling paper, meal and plastic trash.

• In Wichita, Kansas, chiropractor Ingolf Mork uses juggling techniques in teaching reading to dyslexic children and adults. The 79-year-old said, "Over 2,500 kids in three years and working in three prisons, we are having tremendous success. We are ready to show our special approach to other jugglers." If you're interested, contact Mork at 402 Pattie Ave.; Wichita, KS 67211.

• A new theme park opening this fall in the Tokyo, Japan, area is looking for performers. If you're interested, send promo material and/or a videotape. Videotapes will be returned if you so request. Contact: Michael Naishtut; c/o Toho Entertainment; Yanagida Building 3rd Floor; 1-18-12 Shinjuku; Shinjuku-ku; Tokyo 160; Japan. Call 011-813-226-8140 or FAX 226-0613.

• Some notes on jugglers gathered from The Circus Report and King Pole Magazine:

  • The Zunigas performed at Holland Village in Nagasaki, Japan.

  • T.J. Howell will be at Busch Gardens and the Circus World Museum this summer.

  • Jacqueline Brafford with the Wonderland Circus.

  • Bob Bramson with Circus Krone at its permanent building in Munich in March.

  • Circus Vargas includes three rings of jugglers simultaneously - The Osmani Sisters, The Caros and The Fernandes.

  • Likewise the American Continental Circus, featuring Antonio & Pepi Olmeda, Bob Welz, and Felix & Willie Pages.

  • Maurico Droguette with the Hubler International Super Circus.

  • Dan Buckley was doing school shows in Illinois, using juggling to teach students the value of perseverance.

  • Curtis Cainin with Franzen Brothers Circus.

  • Jimmy Adams with the Russell Brothers Circus.

  • Tommy Liebel with the Liebel Family Circus.

  • The Caesars, Kris Kristos and The Yolandas with the 106th edition of the Beatty Cole Circus.

  • Pat Davison & Lauren, T.J. Howell and Miss Janie with The Tarzan Zerbini Circus.

  • Portuguese juggler Tony Lester appeared with the American Circus in Ireland. He spun balls on his fingers while blowing two ping-pong balls with his mouth and did three and four clubs on an unsupported ladder.

  • Graham Thomas Chipperfield did three ping-pong balls with his mouth, five clubs and boomerang Mexican hats in Chipperfield's Circus in England.

  • The International Circus in Britain included club, ball and hoop juggling by the teenage Moroccan juggler Abdul Aziki.

  • Jacqueline Brafford with the new indoor Circus Fantasy in West Virginia.

  • Christian Chrof with the Shrine Circus in Portland.

  • Jeff Tharpe with the Diablo Brothers Circus in Texas.

  • Carson & Barnes Circus featured five rings of jugglers, Oscar Marcias; Julio, Jorge, Carmen & Chicu Rosales; Miriam Moreno; Romel, Sebastian, Rosa, Alex & Junior Padilla; and Freddy & Tonio Rosales.

  • Nine-year-old Justino Zoppe was listed as "the act I most enjoyed" in a review of the Tarzan Zerbini gold unit.

• Mark Nizer and his wife, Scott Neisser, have moved from New York to LA, and celebrated with a June 5 - July 17 world performing cruise on a boat going to Russia, Poland, Denmark, London, Norway, and Finland among others.

• Chuck Sheperd's occasional column for the Universal Press Syndicate called "News of the Weird" carried this item recently: "A 27-year-old man was taken to a Lincoln, Neb., hospital in critical condition in December after police found him nude and unconscious under a balcony with four oranges and a partially-eaten apple lying underneath him. Police speculated he fell trying to juggle the oranges while eating the apple." This item was sent to Juggler's World by Judith & Gary Parker the same day the dentist told the editor about a patient who, during New Year's Eve revelry, broke a tooth with a pool ball he was juggling when it took a bad bounce off the ceiling. Who says juggling is so healthy?

• Atlanta's Alexis Lee spent the spring at Holland Village in Japan on her second job at that resort park. Her act includes a shackle and sack escape, torch swinging, manipulation of dinner plates, and a routine with an apple, onion, rubber ball and audience volunteer in which she never eats the apple!

• The Passing Zone, 1989 Teams Champions Owen Morse and Jon Wee, performed some new tricks during a six-week engagement at Expo 90 in Osaka, Japan, in April and May. In one routine, each man rides a six-foot unicycle as they exchange four basketballs. It's a shower pattern, with one man bouncing the balls to the other while the partner passes them straight across. They're working on five, a pattern in which both bounce balls across the void to the other just as two hands would do in a five ball force bounce. Wee said they hope to have some more new tricks for the convention in LA this summer - including passing 10 clubs and vertical torch passing in their rola bola shoulder stand!

• Fort Wayne, Ind., Jugglers Anonymous members Valjane Langohr and Giselle Langohr joggled their way to the 26th floor of the Fort Wayne National Bank Building in the "Hoof to the Roof" stair climb, a charity fundraiser in late March.

• Rodger French is looking for performers for a new ensemble called "The Deluxe Vaudeville Orchestra." Applicants must have proficiency on at least one musical instrument and one or more vaudeville skills. Send your promo material to him at: 503 E. Nelson Ave.; Alexandria VA 22301. Call 703/549-1710.

• French ball spinner Francois Chotard writes from a performing tour of Morocco that, with some help from children in the audience, he is able to spin nine balls at a time on the contraption he holds with a single hand. It's a new record for Chotard, and he will show it to conventioneers in Los Angeles.

• Michael Moschen was the first variety act on Ricky Jay's mid-April CBS television variety special called "Learned Pigs & Fireproof Women" (named after the book of the same name written by Jay). Moschen performed his crystal ball manipulation routine, which ends as he tosses the ball to his forehead and lies down on stage with the ball still balanced there.

• Several jugglers ran into each other at International Gardens Greenery Expo '90 in Osaka, Japan in May. The Passing Zone (Jon Wee and Owen Morse) and Ned Kelley were there, and ran into Las Piranhas (Fritz Brehm, Franz Johan and Benji Marantz). Elsewhere in Japan, Karen Quest is training employees of a new theme park called Sanrio Fantastic Puroland in improvisation, movement and juggling through September. She was expecting six months of no club passing, but one evening on the train happened to run into Laurel Pickering, whom she had first met eight years ago at the weekly juggling meetings at Valley College in Los Angeles.

• Roni Lynn (a registered occupational therapist) presented a workshop in "juggling as a therapeutic activity" to more than 80 other OTR's in March in Detroit, Mich. Lynn teaches that juggling is a unique therapeutic tool that can be used with a wide variety of diagnoses and can be adapted to meet the challenges of patients from pediatrics to geratrics. Anyone interested can contact her at 3511 SW 35th St.; Hollywood FL 33023; 305/966-3227.