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Dana Smith without chicken. |
Page 19 Winter 1988 - 89
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Local
company, Fool's Paradise, consisting of Michael Hirshbach, Norman
Engleberg-Schneiderman and Linda Donnelly also have a
strong juggling component to their show. There are some nice three
person passing patterns with six and seven clubs. Linda steals clubs
from the pattern and replaces them in inventive ways from the sides,
behind and from below. Linda does lots of nice acrobatics through
the patterns, including a handstand with open legs under a shower of
six fire torches. Also, in Waldo-Woodhead style, Michael &
Norman chase three clubs around and inject a broom, ball, and giant
tennis racket into the pattern. They have a unicycle routine with
formations and comic moves. Schneiderman rides an 18-inch midget
unicycle.
Comedian/musician
AI Krolick of the Al Shakespeare Side Show does one juggling number,
the infamous "tomatoes of death" routine in which he
catches a tomato
on a knife held in his teeth.
My
apologies to jugglers Glenn Singer (from West Virginia), Alex
EIixer (from British Columbia), Robert Nelson (a.k.a. The
Butterfly Man) and Jerry Rowan (from Baltimore) whose acts
were not among the 40 or so which I managed to catch.
The
Street Performers Festival idea holds considerable promise for the future.
As part of an effort to "franchise" the Buskers concept to
other locations, two mini-festivals, in Ottawa and Fredericton, took
place prior to the big bang in Halifax. Each site had some 15
performers and ran four or five days. These performers then continued
on to Halifax.
In
Ottawa some 90,000 people attended while in Fredericton 55,000 people
came, creating the largest crowds seen in the city since the end of
World War II! Twenty-two cities have asked to participate in the
future and festival organizers will select six of these from possible
sites across Canada, the United States, Britain and West Germany to
take part in next year's festivals.
The
economic benefits to the buskers are also no laughing matter. Buskers
are notoriously tight-lipped about exactly how much money they make,
but on good days one of the better acts could expect to earn upwards
of $200 per hat on Halifax streets. With
the exposure and possible financial rewards that the festival offers,
this will continue
to be a point of concern for buskers, both local and not.
And speaking of financial rewards, the festival awarded a number of prizes (see Fall 1988 Jugglers World for a complete listing) which included quite a number which went to juggling acts. WaldoWoodhead walked off with first prize ($5,000) in the big People's Choice Award. Last year's winners, Variety in Motion, were second ($3,000). Ray Jason; The Bounty Brothers, Lee Ross, William Lee, Robert Nelson, Tri-Jesters, Mickey O'Conner, Daniel Looker and Jerry Rowan all shared in other honors.
In
an outstanding display of busker solidarity, the Friendship Among
Buskers Award went to Ron Doug Parks, a local musician, who had to
leave the Festival early when it was discovered that his son had
leukemia.
I don't know whether we are witnessing the birth of a new phenomenon or if this is a return in new guise to the commedia del arte, and ancient origins of theatre in the streets, but it certainly holds great promise. Not only is it great family entertainment, which draws people of all age brackets and gets them out of their homes and away from their television sets, but it also has rosy economic prospects for buskers and the cities which play host to these festivals. If I had to bet, I'd wager that a network of buskers festivals is going to be a major feature of the juggling landscape within the next decade. For jugglers everywhere this is going to translate into a major economic and artistic opportunity. Hang onto your hats! (Christopher
Majka, writer, biologist and juggler, throws objects in the air and
sometimes catches them - in Halifax, N.S., Canada.) |
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Dana Smith without chicken. |
