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In the second part he performed his trademark trick, tossing cups and saucers up to

catch them on his head. He tossed the first saucer from his foot, then a cup followed, and landed with diabolical precision on the saucer. Then he put another saucer

on his foot and threw it. It landed noiselessly on the cup. He added a third

story while explaining to the astonished audience that he, too, was looking forward to the end of the show, but that he had to continue because it was part of his contract!

At the fourth stage, his throw was visibly too high and the cup passed over his head, and everyone was astonished to not hear breaking crockery behind him. But no! The trickster had made a blind catch with his hand behind his back! His skill was even more extraordinary because the Crazy Horse stage was only 8 feet tall, and there were only a few centimeters between the top of his pile of dishes and the ceiling. He completed the fourth cupand-saucer story, continuing the buildup of gags that made the audience roll with laughter, and finally he tossed a teapot to the top of the incredible scaffolding.

Then, following cigar boxes was a series of three ball tricks done very classically but with a relaxed manner and wrapped with such irresistible humor that I had trouble following it because of the tears in my eyes.

Once the routine was over, I rushed backstage to find out more about this wonderful performer...

Dieter Tasso was born in Berlin, Germany, in January 1934. His mother and father juggled as the Krakows, but had just about stopped performing publicly by the time Dieter came along. Still, he remembers growing up in an active household with rings, balls and clubs flying all over the living room. But World War II disrupted the entertainment world all over Europe.

As a youngster, he didn't understand the cataclysmic nature of the conflict, and he and friends took a childish pride in being able to identify air mines, fire bombs and explosion bombs from the fragments they found all around them. When the bombing

became regular, Dieter's family sent him to the southern part of Germany to live on farms and in military camps. Both parents died before the war ended and Dieter went to live with an uncle, a well-known comedy juggler named "Little Knox." As he was watching over the cows on the family farm Dieter started amusing himself for the first time with juggling. He asked Little Knox to teach him the art but his uncle refused at first, claiming that Dieter didn't have the talent Dieter admits this was the case, but Little Knox didn't count on this young disciple's tenacity. Dieter said, "I couldn't balance and I couldn't juggle, but I liked it so much I'd get up in the middle of the night and practice so my uncle wouldn't think I wasn't talented."

In 1947 Little Knox relented and began 13-yearold Dieter's formal training. Little Knox began his career as an acrobat in 1911, but made his reputation as a well respected comedy juggler who performed three balls and kickups with clubs. He had many juggling friends, and another frequent visitor to the practice studio was King Repp, a giant figure in the German entertainment world.

King Repp was also a comedy juggler, and was the first performer to use three different colored top hats. He used a red one, yellow one and green one to emulate traffic lights, and the effect of them flying around his head as he swept them on and off was said to be stunning.

Dieter explained, "King Repp had done an act with my father and two other people when they .were young. I knew him very well, he came to practice to see if I was making any progress, and he gave me my first cigar boxes and top hat. I was very proud of him, he was always my idol in life."

As Little Knox wound down his own performing career, he cranked up that of his nephew. They performed together for a while as the Two Krakows. As Tasso would learn a new trick, he would add it to the act and Knox would take out one of his own to keep the time constant. When he learned the cup and saucer trick, Knox saw it as the opportunity to give young Dieter a stage name. "He said I should name myself 'Tasso' because the word for 'cup' sounds like that in just about every European language," Tasso explained.