Stars on The Ben & Jerry's touring Vaudeville bus recently were Dana Smith, Henrik Bothe and Tash Wesp. They each did solo acts, as well as ensemble club swinging and club passing routines during their three month tour. Wesp is one of only a handful of female solo street performers anywhere. But when the Ben & Jerry'sbus stopped in Los Angeles, fate worked out a reunion of three of the rare breed. Wesp, in town on the Ben &: jerry's tour, met for the first time Pinie Treffers and Petra Massey. Treffers is famous throughout Europe as "Mrs. Jones," and Massey, performing as "Pip," is a much acclaimed newcomer to the streets from London who was passing through town on the way to Australia and New Zealand for the winter.

 

Don Ganz has landed in Marblehead, Mass., following two-and-a-half almost continuous years at sea working on cruise ships. During that time he visited 57 countries in the Baltic region, Europe, South America and the Caribbean. He also learned to do his act in four foreign languages - French, Italian, German and Spanish. Ganz does a clowning routine featuring sleight of hand, but he also juggles balls, clubs, cigar boxes and torches, as well as doing balance tricks and fire eating. He intends to give up the sea for a while and work in New England.

 

Gregory Popovich and his family have settled in Las Vegas, where he began a six­month contract at Circus-Circus in January. Popovich had surgery on his knee after a fall prematurely ended his run with Ringling Brothers last year. He recuperated back in Moscow for three months, where he says the new capitalistic times are tough for circus artists. Popovich came back to the states in May to work at Circus-Circus in Reno last summer, then moved to Las Vegas with his father, wife and one-year-old daughter, Anastasia. Besides the act for which he is best known, numbers juggling on the unsupported ladder, Popovich says he's developing a comedy act. Among acts recently appearing in Las Vegas was Daniel Rosen, who was at Caesars Palace with Julio Iglesias in mid-November. Rosen's high-energy act includes up to five clubs, climbing stairs on a unicycle, playing banjo and eating many of his props in a wild finale. Also in Las Vegas, Yvonne Savage does the cup and saucers routine on a unicycle, among other intricate tricks, as part of the show at Circus-Circus.

 

The butterfly-headed balding one, Robert Nelson, has recently moved to Venice, Calif., from Nashville. He said he's spending time with Dan Hohman, and intends to develop more stand-up comedy and "actually put together a real act!" Nelson recently performed in Vermont, where he spent time with Tom Murphy at that performer's new home in Stowe.

 

Travis Bear has relocated from Massachusetts to Fort Collins, Colo., and spent the summer entertaining at Rocky Mountain festivals and civic occasions. Bear plays "a friendly strange guy" on stilts, juggling, shaking hands and lifting small children into the air.

 

If anyone who attended the IJA festival in Montreal has a picture of Lotte Brunn receiving her Historical Achievement Award, please contact Juggler's World. That segment of the ceremony was double exposed on our film and we'd like to get a picture of the occasion for our records.

 

San Antonio's Wink Danenberg was featured on Late Night With David Letterman a while back. He showed off to the national TV audience his signature trick of balancing an egg on his shoe and a glass on his forehead, then kicking the egg up to break it in the glass. He has regularly been working cruise ships and comedy clubs in the South.

 

Fool Time Centre for Circus Skills has tripled its space with a move to new premises in the Kingswood area of Bristol, England. A renovation program will eventually more than quadruple the space available in the new quarters, with plans for residential accommodations for 50 students, a trapeze hall, public performance space, health center and prop-making workshop. Fool Tune founding member Helen Crocker has taken over as overall course director of the group. Haggis McLeod is instructor of juggling and equilibristics, one of 11 full-time instructors at the center. For more information, write Fool Time at Britannia Road; Kingswood; Bristol, England.

 

Orange Juggler Celeste Wade won the Miss Greater Riverside County (Calif.) pageant last September using juggling in the talent portion of that competition. Wade began juggling at age 10, and honed her skill at Tustin High School as a member of Owen Morse's juggling club. Now she's studying for a master's degree in urban and regional planning at Cal. Tech - Pomona, and is preparing for further competition in the Miss California pageant in June with coaching from Randy Pryor. If she wins that pageant, she will represent California in the Miss America pageant. Her 3­minute routine in September was to music, beginning with balls, rings and Dube swords. As the "Chariots of Fire" theme song rose, the stage went black and she juggled light stick-fueled glowing balls for her finale. Wade previously won the Miss Sandimas pageant, and was selected recently to serve on the Freedom Bowl court for that Anaheim football match. In that capacity she juggled during several public appearances.

 

Baby News! U.S. Department of Juggling stalwart Shelley Harris announces the birth of Brooke Julia Harris Shafer on Aug. 24, 1992, to herself and husband Steve Shafer. "Baby is too little to juggle, but we won't wait long before trying to teach her," writes Shelley. Fort Washington, Md., juggler Mike John and his wife, Sue, are parents of Kasey Rebekah John, born June 23. West Coaster David Deeble and his wife, Peggy Reuss, have a new daughter, Molly, who was born this fall.

 

Notes on jugglers gleaned from other publications: Lali Nereus, a 12-year-old who won a silver medal at a circus youth festival in Paris, juggled with up to nine rings and seven balls with the Boswell Wilkie Circus in South Africa... Mark Nizer appeared in New York's Lincoln Center Alice Tully Hall in mid­December doing a show entitled "My Brain Is Full..." Shane Hansen juggled with the AIde Tyme Family Circus and at the Cajun Heartland Festival in Louisiana... Steven Hess and IJA Juniors winner Sean McKinney with the Los Angeles Fern St. Circus... Senior Individual Champion Miguel Herrera was with Cirque du Soleil... Carson & Barnes Circus features juggling by Ducel and Benson... Los Fernandez Troupe appeared with Circus Vargas... The Valencias and Francine with Circus

Valentine... Eros Espana and the Zerbini Troupe with The Great American Circus... The Polish juggler Oresto doing clubs on the ground and on free-standing ladder with the L.A. Circus... Antipodist Chester Cable does a wagon wheel and 10-foot long table with his feet, also with the L.A. Circus... Justino Zoppe with an Ed Migley circus in Utica, N.Y..