 |
 |
 |
 |
Page 22 Fall 1991
|
IJA Honors Its "Attorney Juggler" in St. Louis by Shelley Harris The
IJA named
He
has also been a big supporter of the IJA almost since its inception,
and may have attended more annual festivals than anyone. And his place
in juggling history is assured by his having taught Allan Jacobs the
basics of club swinging. Jacobs has since taught the art to thousands
of people and made it part of the standard repertoire of juggling
skills.
What
most jugglers don't know is that Indritz has worked for many years on
Capitol Hill with the movers and shakers of American government. He
currently works with a congressional committee in the House of
Representatives and with a national veterans group. He has been
involved in many crucial civil rights cases, including
Brown v. Board of Education, which desegregated
public schools in the 1950s. His most significant
litigation was in the Supreme Court in 1948 when he and Thurgood
Marshall argued the cases which struck down racial and religious
covenants in housing, and which were vital to the strength of the
arguments in Brown v. Board of Education.
Here
are some excerpts from a recent conversation with Indritz
about his involvement with juggling...
"I started juggling about 1944. I had been a good gymnast in college and qualified for the Olympics. But during the war gymnasium equipment wasn't available and I began to notice I was getting hurt. So I looked around for something I could do by myself or with others, indoors or out, at a high level or an easy level, and to a very old age. The only activity that met those qualifications was juggling.
"During
the war I was stationed in various places, and I would go to a circus
or a show and ask jugglers in
between performances to show me
things. I met people like Trixie Larue, Francis Brunn and Massimiliano
Truzzi that way, and they were all very nice to me. The first IJA
convention I attended was the second one in 1948, and since then I've
been to most of them. There were about 40 or 50 jugglers at the early
ones, but they were all professionals working in circuses, vaudeville
and comedy clubs. I remember one husband and wife couple who stood
about 15 feet apart and bounced 11 or 12 balls to each other.
They did another trick where she would stand and
bounce five balls on the ground and he would stand on a chair,
lean over her head facing the same way and do seven balls
in front of her five. From the audience's point of view
there were 12 balls bouncing. It was just magnificent!
"There
used to be a couple of foot jugglers who
came, too, but you don't see them anymore.
That's too bad because they really can be very artistic.
"At one of the early conventions I was doing a little routine Trixie Larue had shown me and Bobby May came up and asked, 'What is that you're doing? I haven't seen it.' It was a little three club thing where one club made a single turn, the second club made a double turn reversed and the third one made a double turn to the side. The next one made a single turn, then there'd be a triple turn, then a turn behind the back. Because there was no repetition each club went in a different direction and that was unusual. Of course it was nothing at all for Bobby to do, but imagine me doing something Bobby May said he hadn't seen!
"I
keep coming back because I like to see what's going on, and I
learn things,
too. At the last festival Fred Garbo taught me a new diabolo trick.
When I see him again I'm going to ask him to show me another little
stunt!
"Allan
Jacobs happened to see me doing club swinging at the Eugene, Ore.,
convention in 1978. Club swinging used to be an Olympic gymnastic
event until 1948, but jugglers weren't doing it. It was done stiffly
in a very military style. Allan saw me swinging clubs and was so
fascinated he asked me to show him how. I did, and pointed him
toward some old books he might look at for more instruction.
"By combining the basic moves with body motion he's made a completely new art form. I have tremendous admiration for how he developed it. He says at the beginning of his workshop videotape that it's dedicated to Phineas Indritz, who showed him how to club swing! I am delighted to give something to the juggling world through him." |
|
|
|
|