One of the American Raspyni Brothers juggled five knives late one evening but later when I saw them passing seven clubs I realized that they may not be totally loony. I had my doubts about Francois Chotard who had grown and filed his fingernails specially for ball-spinning. He can spin at least eight at the same time and seems content to do so for hours on end!

 

On the other side of the hall, Antonio Bucci spent hours bouncing seven balls off a marble slab to a classical music tape. He normally uses lacrosse balls but someone had loaned him seven silicone balls and he couldn't put them down. He had runs of up to 10 minutes without a drop!

 

I couldn't wait to see some of these skills used in performance, but when Cirque du Trottoir (Sidewalk Circus) put on an impromptu show, the crowd was so deep I couldn't see what was happening from the bar. I did hear castanets, musical instruments and wild applause and I saw the top half of a marionette sketch where the puppeteers were on stilts. I had to wait until Saturday to see the Public Show and learn the potential of most of the skills.

 

Talking about skills, there were workshops throughout the convention on everything from devil-stick and diablo to balloon modeling.

 

I decided to learn to juggle too. After all, there were lots of girls who could do it and some were really good, like Kezia Tenenbaum of Airjazz, a group that had just finished filming their second spot for the prestigious Paul Daniels Magic Show in England!

 

When I plucked up enough nerve to ask someone they were really helpful and, believe it or not Astrid, ten minutes later I could almost juggle. By the end of the convention, I was learning to juggle plates in the kitchen, until people complained about pieces of china in their food.

 

On Saturday afternoon loads of coaches were arranged to take everyone to Brussels where they held a parade and ended up in the famous Grand Place. On the parade I fell in love with J.J. (Gerard Estrem) who was so handsomely dressed with a yellow coat hanger stretched around his face and a little yellow ball in his throat that kept appearing between his lips. The poor man had to lean on two devil sticks to walk and had a big argument with a policeman who tried to hurry him across a road.

 

A bandstand had been erected in the middle of the square and the marching band led the parade through a gateway in­to the square. It must have been an amazing sight for locals and tourists as several hundred jugglers converged. Several performers did mini-shows, even Popovitch joined in and did a sort of street show, while others juggled in all different formations. Then it was time for the games.

 

The games included one called "Battle of the Juggleators" where you had to stop other juggling clubs without dropping your own. No wonder the guy who won this was twice as big as anyone else. The messiest contest was the apple-eating contest won by Sam Scurfield from Bradford, England, in four bites flat. Frank Olivier won the five ball duration challenge, which might have gone on all day if the final competitors hadn't started fooling around while juggling. The long-distance passing competition threatened the safety of the crowd as the longer throws got more and more inaccurate.

 

Eventually we all went back to the sports hall to prepare for the public show that evening. I won't give you all the details here except to say it was exhilarating to see the amazing results that practice and im­agination produce. After the show everyone went outside and the braver/drunker jugglers threw blazing torches around, spun fire devil sticks and hurled fire diablos high into the night.

 

The evening culminated in a magnificent fireworks display which puts most city­organized displays to shame. L'Ecole sans Filet organized this juggling jamboree brilliantly for the 550 people who came.

 

In fact, Astrid, I've already arranged a week's holiday in September next year for the 9th European Juggling Convention in the small village of Castellar de la Frontera in the southernmost part of Spain. I've never seen so many people party like this for four days and have so much fun. I'm ready to sleep for a week, so I'll end here.

 

Lots of Love,

Brigitte