NOTES, continued

 

The American Dream Comedy Team, Scotty Meltzer and John Park, have been performing regularly. The Team opened for Kenny Loggins, and appeared on the Children's Miracle Network Telethon during June. They continue to do many shows in Southern California. According to Meltzer, they are also working on passing seven torches on unicycles, as well as their usual "chasing people around and burning them."

 

Sergei Ignatov ran into problems this spring after a tour of Japan. He got very sick with pneumonia, then had to have an operation on cartilage in his hand. He felt like he was almost back to top 11-ring form in Japan, but the recent health setbacks halted his progress. He is now recovering, practicing again, and hopes to regain his form in the fall.

 

Edward Jackman has been filling his performance schedule with a lot of corporate shows in the last few months, and will be making several television appearances during the remainder of 1989. They include the season-opener of the Smothers Brothers' variety show, and another appearance on Showtime's "Super Dave" show. On his "Super Dave" appearance in late March, Jackman got the chance to try to impress Dave with his juggling feats. Try as he could, though, none of Jackman's tricks -- dive rolls with clubs, seven rings, facial bike balance while juggling tennis rackets or juggling Rubix cube solution -- could impress the unflappable Dave.

 

Otherwise, Jackman is doing fewer college performances and more club and corporate dates, including service as MC at a Universal Studio's show during the "Jazz Taste of Hollywood" festival in April. Jackman also has some suggestions for new juggling competitions. Among his ideas are "Walking races for those of us who aren't athletic enough to run," and "ball swinging, for those of us too uncoordinated to swing a club because of that stupid knob on the end."

 

Charlie Brown has been performing at Pier 39 in San Francisco, working on slack rope variations, and getting up in the middle of the night with his infant daughter. His technical goal in the next year is to do five clubs on a slack wire.

 

Daniel Rosen's acting career continues, as he plays a recurring character on television's "Head of the Class." Rosen's character, "Scab," is a student in a remedial class who has blue hair and a ring in his nose, a persona that he created. "It's a guy a lot like me, except for the stupid part," he says. On the juggling side, Rosen has been doing many private shows around the country, and performs at the lmprov in Los An­geks regularly. He will also be appearing at Bally's in Las Vegas in August.

 

Nina Cheney and Jacob Mills, a wife and husband team from Madison, Wisc., have been working throughout the Midwest. The team, which has been together for eight years, performs a variety of shows ranging from school-assemblies to instructional shows to adult nightclub acts. All feature their well-developed juggling skills and mime. One of their specialties is mime routines with a series of plain white masks. made in Switzerland. By using the masks in various ways, they are able to play a myriad of different characters.