ISLA VISTA

Festival Continues to Make History

by Gary Varney

 

The last time I had attended an Isla Vista festival was in 1987, but it hasn't changed much in those 10 years. Same park in the daytime, same gym at night, same weather, same cost (free!), same laid-back atmosphere.

 

At 21 years of age, this annual April gathering is billed as "the longest-running festival in the known universe." But it was born out of tragic circumstances. In the mid­seventies, Patty Laney, a local juggler, was raped and murdered shortly before her first public juggling performance. Each year since then, this festival is held in Patty's memory and all proceeds are donated to the Santa Barbara Rape Crisis Center. A great cause ­heck, I even bought a t-shirt.

 

But when I and rec.juggling habitue "thomasl" arrived on time Friday night at the gym at the University of California, Santa Barbara, we were horrified to discover a college basketball game in full swing. No juggling in sight. We drove eight hours for this? They held a festival and no one came? We spied a small note taped to the front doors: "Jugglers meet at Jeff's house for a few hours until the game's over. Here's the address." Typical Isla Vista.  We'll just juggle, like, whenever, dude.

 

Groovy.

 

Juggling did manage to get underway around 9:30 p.m., and it made up for the

earlier frustration. Although Adam Adler and I had very little success with seven ball front steals, he and that site-swapping fanatic Allen Knutson enjoyed some nice runs of 12 ball passing. Activity came to a standstill at one point when former Juniors champ Sean McKinney of San Diego started jamming with his high-energy three ball routine in the middle of the gym floor. Later I watched him work on eight balls in an asynchronous fountain and was impressed by the near perfection of the pattern. Runs may have been brief, but they were seemingly effortless, and - unlike my own practice sessions - he rarely dropped.

 

By day, jugglers gathered in a small park dotted by a windmill. Weather was sunny, as expected. Among notable sights, besides Miz Tilly's puppy, was Dan Menendez juggling three clubs and one ball - he tossed the ball out of the pattern to an ear balance while maintaining the three club juggle. Also noteworthy was Dan Bennett's rock­solid four volleyball juggle with fifth bouncing on forehead.

 

After hearing "Have you seen that little girl juggle?" for the umpteenth time,  I sought out the source of everyone's admiration. It turned out to be the petite11-year-old Shawna Battaglia- Winfield from the nearby Muddy Bog Juggling Club of Atascadero, Calif. She's off to a great start with five balls, but her forte seems to be club passing. After she passed seven clubs with her father, Kevin, I was invited to a three-person feed with her. She acted as feeder, and she's got it down pat! She served as inspiration for me to spend more time teaching my own children to juggle.

 

Saturday night's public show was sparsely attended by the public, and it dragged on too long because there were tons of raffle prizes to be given away. I suppose that speaks to the generosity of the local vendors who donated free cassette tapes and coupons for free pizza slices and whatnot, but I'm just grumpy because I didn't win a single thing. The show was emceed by Edward Jackman, who cracked jokes throughout the evening in his somewhat manic way and demonstrated some of his trademark tricks - with great appreciation from the crowd - like balancing a ten-speed bike on his forehead while juggling three clubs.

 

The show opened with Dan Holzman and his three ball wizardry and smooth devil stick routine. He was followed by locals Jeff Walsh and Mark Collier, who rapidly manipulated five hats between them. Sean McKinney did a hyper "grunge-style" routine to rock music, with innovative moves using three, four and five clubs, including a forward roll under two clubs out of four.

 

Jack Kalvan did a ring trick which brought down the house: four rings with a fifth balanced on his face, then dropped the balanced ring back to be kicked up and over his head with his heel, and into a five ring cascade!

 

Laura Green (Miz Tilly) selected four non­juggling men to participate in an entertaining comedy act in which she teaches them to do cigar box manipulation using coffee cans.

 

Dan Bennett showed "three tennis balls and the can they call home." Truly incredible, and very fast, as usual. He even had Bob Mendelsohn and Rich Ross act as ball boys to retrieve errant balls!

 

Dan Menendez closed the show with a version of the piano juggling routine he performed on the Tonight Show, and his ball­spinning act to the music of"2001: A Space Odyssey."