It all started innocently. Two young but active clubs in north Texas, the Dallas Anti-Gravity Circus and the Denton Jug­glers Assn. never got together because their meetings were each held Wednesday nights.

The Denton Club decided to invite Dallas to juggle on Sunday, March 2, Texas's 150th birthday. The rest went something like this:

"Let's print some fliers with a map and phone numbers."

"We could put them up around town and on campus."

"Then we'll have to call it something."

"How about the North Texas Jugglers

Festival? We could invite other IJA members in Texas, and what about Oklahoma?"

Soon a group of novice jugglers who had never even been to a juggling festival had organized one. With help from Audrey Bernecker from Dallas, we distributed

fliers and made telephone calls. Then we waited.

On the big day, jugglers were waiting in the parking lot when we opened the gym at North Lakes Recreation Center. And they continued to arrive from as far away as Oklahoma City and Austin. More than 60 jugglers and 30 spectators eventually filled the gym.

We all performed our best tricks, but the Oklahomans stole the show. Bill Williams and Jim Howell of Magic Motion demonstrated their skills with ball and plate spinning and mixed object juggling. Karen and Paul Phariss and Kevin Holman of Circus Movement were the star numbers jugglers, passing 11 clubs between them and 8 and 9 clubs between two people.

The fun continued well past our allotted time, so everyone moved outdoors where Mica Calfee supervised torch juggling dressed in full fire-fighting gear.

Our festival was a hit, thanks to all those who came to juggle and to the Denton Parks and Recreation Department. Afterwards the talk went like this:

"They want us to do it again!"

"Should we try for fall, or next spring?"

"We ought to have some workshops..."

"And a public show!"

"You know, someone in this area should host an IJA convention..."

Rochester rocks again

by Colleen Healy

On April 19-20, the Ninth Annual Spring Juggle-In was held at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, New York. More than 200 people came from Ohio, Connecticut, Vermont, Penn­sylvania and New Hampshire to join the festivities. One RIT alumnus made the trip all the way from Kansas City!

Numerous workshops were held throughout the day. Guests saw an impressive three ball tricks demonstration from Alan Howard and Jim Neff. Dan Foley, Joel Harris, Mary Bertone, Steve Johnson, John Nicowski and Frank Citino talked about club passing. Foley and Harris performed 7 clubs back-to-back and Foley, Harris and Citino did 11 and 12 club feeds.