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Kiwi Juggling Catches On

BY AVELINE PEREZ

In March, New Zealand played host again to an international contingent of jugglers

for what I suspect is the biggest (if not only) southern hemisphere juggling convention. The "land of the long white cloud" directed its juggling visitors to the southern island town of Christchurch for a weekend of fun and friendship.

I took an instant liking to Christchurch. Sure, the ease with which one can walk or ride a bike there (it's very, very flat - except the road does rise two feet when it goes over a railway line!) probably swayed me in its favor, as did the fact that I spent a weekend in arborous surroundings with arduous jugglers (it's a hearty breed of folk who start teaching you tomahawk throws at two in the morning!).

In fact, the "surroundings" proved to be far more luxurious than I was expecting for a camping holiday. I not only arrived to find a classroom with mattresses and pillows, but with heating and an adjacent bathroom. There was also on-site catering which also provided us with somewhere to sit and chat.

Mind you, any chatting on the Friday afternoon was likely to be part of that initial "getting to know you and your props" convention session. So, after a couple of hours

of mutual prop admiration (and juggling).

in the gym, we were clearly ready to take our skills out to the public - in fact we had no say in the matter. The convention was opened with a "Juggler's Jig" right in the heart of Christchurch. The Jig was actually a variety of competitions interspersed by free-for-all juggling and music from a live band, with the night beginning and ending with a spectacular fire juggle.

Air New Zealand had donated competition prizes of free air travel. Crowds were treated to competitions in diabolo toss, five ball endurance, club-on-chin balance, joggling race, and a mass game of combat juggling.

The enthusiasm of the competitors seemed most enthusiastically manifested by "the long flying leap." There was Mike Twist's flying leap up the stage stairs to the finish-line of the joggling race, and Jason Henwood's leaping tackle to knock Nick Perry off his feet in the combat juggling finals, earning Jason the title of "dirtiest combat player." (And yes, Jason was still juggling after the tackle!).

Saturday morning saw the bleary-eyed beginning of workshops. They ranged from teaching traditional aspects of juggling to more esoteric arts: fire eating, staff

swinging, odd god/free flow and slackrope. The worst part of the workshops was definitely having to choose which ones to attend over the others - I'll clearly have to work on my omnipresence skills! Repeat workshops did make the choice a little easier, and in the meantime, the chances were pretty good of catching up with the tutors in the 24 hour practice hall to get a quick private lesson.

No juggling convention would be complete without its Renegade show - and setting this in the corner of nearby Bailie's Bar certainly ensured a "Renegade" atmosphere. It also meant that the performances were public, which I think deterred all but regular performers from getting up on stage. Nevertheless, we were treated to quite a variety of acts that evening: balls and an open soft-drink can were juggled and bounced (just balls were bounced); clubs were passed (an attempt at seven back to back - it was a small stage); Sugra gave a poetry recital; "hefty" Jeff placed a skewer in each of his arms and attached two chains with a sling for a pint of Guinness, then lifted the whole contraption off the floor bearing the weight only on the skin of his arms. Understandably a man fainted at the bar on witnessing this.

These assortment of acts were held together well by compere Nick Nicholas, who did numerous card and balloon tricks, as well as balancing the NZTV camera on his head (most of the convention was recorded for a local TV current affairs / lifestyle show). A welcomed prop raffle included some Dube products and a locally produced "Fire Chameleon."

The truly Renegade and crowd-pleasing act, though, came from Canadian performer Tom Comet: a raunchy street act which included red and black lingerie and the now infamous slug balloon animal (a balloon passed up the nose and out the mouth).

No doubt, in an attempt to leave such grossness behind us, the final day of the convention proved to be gloriously sunny, allowing the workshops to move outside under the lovely big trees at the college site. As well as the mandatory group photo on Sunday afternoon, a series of games had been arranged, including diabolo distance tossing (Donald finding new and painful parts of the anatomy with which to stop a speeding diabolo ouch!), combat, a three item obstacle race, and a people-wheelbarrow race.

Unfortunately most good things have to come to an end, and the convention was closed quite fittingly with a public show on Sunday night. It was great to see the performances of the people who had been teaching and juggling with us all weekend. As my contact with juggling performance has largely been through street and circus performances, it was interesting to note how well the art transfers to a formal theatre stage. In particular, the fire routines (Leila's torch swinging, and Marcus' fire staff, and Mr. Moon's glow-in-the-dark routine all looked very spectacular on the blackened stage.

Even the traditional circus acts, such as Walter Lavarre's sword balancing and Mark Sands' slackrope routine, were adapted extremely well for the stage. Of course, vaudeville acts are very much at home on stage, as we saw when hefty Jeff had bricks broken on his chest while laying on a bed of nails. There was plenty of music with the Natural Magic Parachute Band (who actually had juggling songs in their repertoire) and plenty of laughs, especially with Nick Nicholas as compere.

The funniest trick though, wasn't a juggling one, but was at the start of Donald Grant's diabolo routine when he struck a pose waiting for the back-up tape to start - ten seconds later, he turned to the audience declaring there was never any backup tape, but we should see the way the roadies were panicking! When Nick joined Donald at the end of the routine, the comic relief doubled while Donald used a diabolo stick release (suicide) to whip a balloon from Nick's mouth.

In all, the New Zealand juggling convention presented a good mixture of events and people. Congratulations are due to the organising committee, in particular Gary and Pauline Nevin from 3 Up Down Under Juggling Co. I was sorry I couldn't stay longer - my advice to future convention goers is allow enough time to juggle in the many exotic and beautiful places New Zealand has to offer! With the founding of the New Zealand Juggling Association (a major achievement of the convention), let's hope that under their wing, future juggling conventions in New Zealand enjoy as much success as the 1994 Christchurch Convention. Until 1995 tena hoe and happy juggling!

Aveline teaches in the high-ceilinged Language and Academic Shills Unit at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia; where after serious rumours of ghosts going thud in the day, she finally started juggling with the office door open. She has now mastered the art of graceful recoveries from the corridor without hitting the Faculty Dean as he passes by.