Hill fine tunes act for top finish

by Tom Sparough

Benji Hill cleaned up his act from last year to jump from third place in 1986 to first in 1987's U.S. Nationals Championship.

 

It was an enjoyable evening of competition in the beautiful Akron Civic Theatre as juggler/comedian Edward Jackman introduced the acts and entertained in between. In fact, he did such a good job that the Atlanta Jugglers Association chose him for their Wild Style Award!

 

Hill, an eight-year veteran juggler from Thomasville, N.C., displayed a wide variety of technical mastery, including a blazing three ball routine, four balls with continuous shoulder throws, astonishingly smooth Albert throws, five clubs and seven rings. All the tricks but three were the same as last year, Hill said. The big change was in performance, most importantly "moving around more and having fun."

 

For Jeff Mason the excitement is discovering and experiencing new tricks. The Pittsburgh , Pa. , juggler treated the audience and judges to a host of his creations with three balls, cigar boxes and the diablo, his specialty. His finale of tossing a second diablo onto the string and bouncing them both above his head earned him a standing ovation.

Numbers Challenge champion Dana Tison took third. The 16-year-old from Baltimore practices in a church with high ceilings, and needed that much overhead space for some of his tricks in Akron . He spiced his routine with a five ball shower, five ball back crosses, five ball Mill's Mess, seven ball neck catch, eight ring flash and a variety of club tricks.     

 

Other highlights of the championships included:

 

· Larry Vaksman - Juggling on a unicycle; balancing on a rola-bola juggling cucumber, lettuce and tomato; combination tricks involving basketballs, bean bags, clubs, spinning balls, a pogo sticks and hula hoops.

 

· Jeff Taveggia - Fast three, four and five clubs; five rings with half turns, seven rings; an unusual zig-zag prop balanced on his head into which he threw balls that rolled back down to him.

 

· Robbie Weinstein - Double pirouette with one ball up of three; five ball tricks, six ball flash; five rings with color changes; six ring flash; three, four and five clubs.

 

· Mike Bilicki - Comic steering wheel ring opening; up to five rings; broom balancing; five ball neck catch; five clubs.

- Mark Richardson - Clown-style routine to chipmunk-like music; three, four and five nested cup manipulation; placing hat on spinning ball, three club and three ball tricks.

 

- Lane Stewart - Samurai cigar box rou­tine; top hat kickup; catching balls in hat; winner of the Jest Jugglers "Best Jest" award.

 

-Bob Nickerson - A barrage of three hatchets and an ax hitting the stage as well as temporarily being juggled and balanced; balancing a tuba and trombone while juggling two balls; back crosses with three real bowling pins.