Brian Dube Inc.

Indisputably one of the top-of-the-line prop makers, Brian Dube learned juggling from Carlo and John Grimaldi, immersed himself completely in it, and began his manufacturing business in 1975 in his apartment on Washington Square North in New York City.

 

Although he has achieved unprecedented success and moved his operations to a commercial factory building, the company remains small, with only three or four employees. Dube's strength is in his curiosity and aptitude for research which, combined with his mathematics background, has enabled him to take up where others have left off and hone the design of his props.

 

He has one of the largest variety of props offered today, ranging from several models of clubs and rings to video tapes, cigar boxes, devil sticks, spinning ropes and a shelf of books.

 

He claims a long line of innovations, including the first molded polyethylene club, first soft-handled European club, solid wood torches with nonasbestos wicks, rubberized devil stick handles, improved and unbreakable rings, the first vinyl no­bounce stage balls and cork numbers clubs.

 

Oh, yes, and one small item, perhaps the first real innovation since the Van Wyck club: the silicone ball. Not a bad track record!

 

Fly By Night Juggling Company

Design is also the strong point of Elliott Little of Talmage, California, who has perfected the illuminated juggling ball, a source of delight and frustration for jugglers for decades.

 

These are truly high tech marvels, innovations Little has been working on for 12 years, held up only in waiting for the right technology to appear.

 

The lit juggling balls he sells are self­contained, permanent, rechargeable and can be turned on and off either by returning the ball to its stand or by a little prestidigitation with magnets. Bobby May would have loved these!