Festivals of interest to jugglers

 

St. Fred's Day Jugglers Invitational

 

The St. Fred's Day Jugglers Invitational, hosted by Jugglers Anonymous, will be held in Fort Wayne IN,. April 2 - 4.

 

Friday events include obstacle course juggle, team egg juggling and community shows. On Saturday. there will be a Jugglers Feast and Frolic, public show. open competitions (3 ball and one leg marathon contests, joggling sprint, joggling run), novice competitions (2 minute 3 object freestyle, 3 minute open performance, 3 ball shower marathon), and senior competitions (4 minute freestyle performance, 4 ball shower for time, 3 minute club free­style, 3 minute ring freestyle, 5 or more objects for time, 5 minute freestyle).

 

On Sunday, the SFDJI winds up with a team juggle mixer and, hopefully, the world's largest team Juggle. The weekend will be heavily covered by local media, with WANE- TV and WLYV radio co­sponsoring the event. It is possible that a national PM Magazine piece about the festival could be aired.

 

Fees before March I are: $5 for weekend regis­tration (or $6 per day), $4 for the public show Saturday night, $1 per contest entry fee and $5 per night lodging. Mail a check with all fees except lodging (which will be with host families) payable 10 "Jugglers Anonymous." List contests you are entering, along with your name and address, on a separate piece of paper.

 

If you want lodging, include a separate check, payable to "Jugglers Anonymous," for $5 per person per night required. Include information on the names, addresses, phone numbers, gender and ages of everyone in your pany, a snapshot of each (so the host family will know who you are) and any special needs (vegetarian, non-smoker, etc.).

 

If you are willing to juggle at community shows, please indicate so. If you belong to a juggling club, please say so. Propmaker inquiries for booth space are invited. Please send all registration material along with a stamped, self-addressed envelope for reply.

 

Call Charlie Willer's answering machine with questions. Specify when after 5 p.m. you can be reached with an answer. Others to call are Larry Thompson or Bob Waugh. Address all registration material to:

"Jugglers Anonymous" c/o Charlie Willer, Fort Wayne, IN.

Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival

 

The Fourth Annual Groundhog Day Jugglers festival, sponsored by the Atlanta Jugglers Association, will be February 5-7 at Grady High School on the comer of Monroe Drive and 10th St. in Atlanta, GA. For information, contact Rodger French or Toni Shifalo.

 

Jugglefest '82

 

By Bruce Hinterleitner Columbia, MO

 

The V's Jugglers are presently planning our Jugglefest '82, in addition to our regular perfor­mances and classes.

 

Jugglefest '82, a multi-faceted extravaganza, is planned for April 16, 17 and 18. Specific events are a public show, an attempt to beat the present continuous three ball juggling record, a Saturday night barbecue, and two special events.

 

Jugglefest '82 will coincide with the Human Race, a local 10,000 meter run. We invite all joggling enthusiasts to run in it with our jogglers. The second extra is that KOMU- TV plans to capture the juggle fest in a 10-15 minute segment of its evening magazine show.

 

A final schedule and registration forms will be sent out in January to all listed clubs, jugglers in the midwest area and other interested parties who contact us. There will be a small registration fee for those attending the barbecue.

 

We will provide limited housing in our jugglers' homes on a flirst come, first served basis. After that, we will try to find cheap housing at either the university or from local merchants. We welcome all prop vendors, but require that you contact us ahead of time to arrange suitable sites to display your wares. For more information, contact Bruce Hinterleitner, Columbia, MO.

 

International Mime and Movement Festival

 

Next summer, Elkins, W.Va., will be the setting for the International Mime and Movement Festival from July 3-10. The festival will be held in conjunction with Davis and Elkins College's "School for Movement Theatre", a seven week program in the "gestural arts."

 

The tentative schedule includes over a dozen performances and daily workshops. Among the noted performers will be mime artist Mamako from Japan, France's Theatre du Mouvement, Mime Omnibus of Canada, the American mime Lotte Goslar and India's Kathakali dance-drama troupe.

 

Further information can be obtained by writing to the School for Movement Theatre, Davis and Elkins College, Elkins, WV.

 

Clubs across the sea

 

European IJA convention attracts international crowd

 

By Lloyd Timberlake London, England

 

More than 100 jugglers from 12 nations gathered in London September 18-21 to show and tell at

the European IJA Rastelli Convention - and to put the "I" in IJA.

 

There were even 18 Americans present, their delegation headed by Larry Olson and Dave "Professor Confidence" Finnigan, both bringing the regards of the IJA officers and the latter expressing confidence - after visiting sporting goods trade fairs around the continent - that Europe was ready for mass juggling.

 

There were also Danes, West Germans, Dutchmen, a Scot, some Englishpeople, an Australian, some Swiss, Frenchmen, an Italian and an Indian demonstrating very different juggling skills and styles and traditions.

 

Most intriguing was the meeting of the very fast, tight European club juggling style (facilitated by very small clubs) and the high, wide, loose and slower American style. Soon Americans were trying to speed things up and the Europeans slowing down their spins.

 

Under the convention directorship of Tim "Tim Bat" Batson, the meeting spent the equivalent of about $1,000 and earned more than $1,100 through registration lees, ticket sales to a sold-out public show and sales of programmes and posters.

 

Karl-Heinz Ziethen, on crutches after his run­in with a train last spring in London but mending well, brought both the first volume of his massive history of juggling's first 4,000 years and hours of movies of the likes of Rastelli, W.C. Fields, Ignatov, Dick Franco (winning the Circus World Championships), along with equally delightful films of forgotten European slapstick, drawing room and club passing acts. We even made another $20 charging members of the public to see these films.

 

The public show, a two-and-a-half-hour extra­vaganza of juggling, featured, among others: the Franco-American passing team of Didier Dupin and Waldo; the Carras Trio (a young Swiss semi­pro team of a man and two women who pass clubs in a dinner jacket and sequined brief costumes ­ the son of Olde Worlde class you don't see at American IJA gatherings); Lindsay Leslie, the Scotsman, doing his 'juggling-while-washing-up' routine; an Italian called Antonette, whom Dick Franco discovered street juggling with solid wooden clubs two years ago, and who now does a solid act with four and five "proper" clubs and five, six and seven balls; and a fast balls-clubs-rings young professional from a well-known English circus family, Richard Del Oro.

 

At a two-man after-the-convention business meeting (we couldn't get people to stop juggling during the official gathering) it was decided that Lindsay Leslie and Tim Batson would serve as European directors, with the usual line-up of hand­some, trench-coated, tough-talking IJA foreign correspondents.