KARL-HEINZ ZIETHEN TOURS USA

Our IJA European Correspondent from West Berlin, Karl-Heinz Ziethen, is just now nearing the end of a three-month tour of the U.S. which included a good deal of sight-seeing and visits with many U.S. jugglers.

Karl-Heinz flew from Europe to New York City where he spent five days. In the New York City area he spent time with Mike Moschen and met various others associated with the Big Apple Circus, which Karl­Heinz reports is due to open again soon on a site near the New York Public Library. Karl-Heinz is pleased by the concept of a number of young circus performers forming a circus, and he hopes that it will some day be possible for the Big Apple Circus to go on tour. Of all the jugglers he saw in the U.S., Karl-Heinz thought Mike Moschen's juggling style was particularly unique. In the New York City area he also visited Dennis Soldati and saw his juggling collection, which Karl-Heinz thought was particularly elegant. He visited Hovey Burgess and was impressed by Hovey's collection of circus literature and Hovey's teaching set-up. He visited various members of the Brunn family, and Karl-Heinz reports that Frances Brunn is booked in Atlantic City starting in October and that Mike Chirrick is performing again.

From New York, Karl-Heinz went to Las Vegas where he spent six weeks visiting his friend Kris Kremo. Karl-Heinz reports that Kremo is now booked in Las Vegas through December 1978 which is impressive, since performers often have their option extended only three months at a time. According to Karl-Heinz, Kremo has now been on four different T.V. shows in the U.S.; these are the Merv Griffin show, the Mike Douglas show, the Dinah Shore show,

and the Mark Wilson magic show. Kremo also appeared on national T.V. on May 19 when the Royal Swedish circus show was broadcast. Karl-Heinz also notes that Kris Kremo's parents, the Bela Kremos, recently visited Kris in Las Vegas for one month. This visit was particularly interesting to Bela Kremo because he performed in Las Vegas in 1953, and the city has grown so much in the past twenty­five years. Karl-Heinz also has another word on the "Dieto" and "Dieter Tasso" confusion in the past two issues of the Newsletter; according to Karl-Heinz, these are two different people. When your editor was recently in Las Vegas, the one performing with Liberace was "Dieto", a German comedy juggler. "Dieter Tasso" is a juggler who came from Europe but has been in the U.S. for a number of years.

(The editor hopes now he's got this right.)

Next stop on his tour was a day in the L.A. area seeing Disneyland and Hollywood, and then Karl-Heinz went on to San Francisco where he spent ten days with Bill Barr. While in the San Francisco area, Karl-Heinz saw a number of jugglers; and he was particularly impressed with the Bay City Reds, the street performance of Ray Jason, and with a visit to Homer Stack where he saw a number of Homer's juggling films.

From San Francisco, Karl-Heinz moved on to Chicago for three days where he visited with Ken Benge and Paul Bachman. He was pleased with Paul's film collection, which along with Homer Stack's, are the best film collections he has seen in the U.S. Bachman also gave Karl-Heinz a fire club which belonged to Salerno, a "gentleman juggler". Salerno was from Berlin and left because of the war. At some point Salerno gave the fire club to Bobby May,

and a few years back Bobby May gave it to Bachman. Now it is going with Karl-Heinz back to Berlin.

Karl-Heinz's next stop was Boston where he was hosted by Don and Lana Reed, and he visited at length with the members of the Boston juggling community who perform around Harvard Square or meet regularly at M.I.T. Karl-Heinz brought copies of juggling movies from Bachman which were shown at the regular Thursday night M.I.T. meeting, including film of Bobby May, Francis Brunn, Rastelli, Truzzi, and Ignatov. While with Don and Lana, Karl­Heinz also viewed their juggling movies, including films of Mike Moschen and Dick "Franco". As I am sure happened at each stop along his trip, the Boston area jugglers were fascinated with the beautiful representative volume from Karl­Heinz's juggling collection that he brought along to show people, and we also were very anxious to listen to his extensive knowledge of the history of juggling and jugglers. Coincidentally, Velva Walden, who has translated the German version of Bauman's The Art of Juggling into English, was visiting Boston at the same time as Karl-Heinz, and they had an opportunity to say a few words to each other in German. Karl-Heinz had more opportunity to see the Fantasy Jugglers (Don and Lana Reed and Rawd Holbrook) perform than any other Boston area jugglers, and he made some very complimentary statements about the Fantasy Jugglers to your editor.

Karl-Heinz also said that he was particularly impressed with the organization and cooperation of the Boston area jugglers, e.g., regularly scheduled meetings in a location where one can show movies, practice, and talk about juggling, and group treks to see other jugglers perform. Karl-Heinz was also impressed with the variety of forms of juggling that Boston area jugglers are experimenting with, how hard they work, and how much they help each other -­professionals and amateurs alike.

From Boston, Don and Lana drove Karl-Heinz to Hartford where he was to spend a couple of days with Roger Dollarhide. Then he was to go back to New York City for two more days. After going to San Juan for two weeks where Francis Brunn is performing, he was to end his trip with a final three weeks in New York City, returning to Europe at the end of June.

Karl-Heinz thinks the U.S. is very interesting because there are so many jugglers, especially amateur jugglers. He compares the popularity of amateur juggling in the U.S. to the great popularity of amateur magic in Germany.

He is planning to return to the U.S. again next year, and will hopefully attend the annual IJA convention if it is held

anywhere near the East Coast. We were all pleased that our European Correspondent from West Berlin could visit the U.S. and that so many U.S. jugglers were able to meet him.

-- Dave Walden

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