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JUGGLING
NOTES FROM THE STRIP Las Vegas, March 9, 1978
Gran
Picaso.is still with the "Hallelujah Hollywood!" show at the
MGM Grand Hotel. His act is very fast paced and skilled. Beginning with
a complete three ball routine, he moves on to spitting one, two, and
three ping pong balls. With four ping pong balls he does lots of
pirouettes, floor bounces, kicks, high throws, and generally uses the
ping pong balls as if they were no different than lacrosse balls except
for his occasionally spitting one.
He
concludes his act with boomerang throws of two plastic bowls he out
above the audience and back to him on stage. At one point he spins one
of the bowls on the edge of the other bowl, much like one
would spin a hat on the end of a stick.
He
then moves on to five bowls (I believe) and several times showers them
briefly. Throughout the entire bowl routine, he
works with the audience, doing fancy catches of bowls thrown back which
had fallen into the audience, and building up audience appreciation for
his tricks with a great many flourishes and lots of styling off.
Picaso's entire act was excellent. (I didn't take any notes during
Picaso's act; the above description is recalled from memory and may be
slightly wrong. Ditto for Kremo's act which is described in the next
paragraph.) The other specialty acts with the show were also excellent,
including a trained baby elephant, five trained monkeys, and a pair of
illusionists. The rest of the show was deliberately and self consciously
spectacular.
With
the "Lido" show at the Stardust was Kris Kremo. Kris is as
good as our European correspondents have said he is. He begins his act
with balancing, kicking, spinning, and general manipulation of one
bowler hat. He then adds a cigar shaped mouthstick and does an
additional set of balancing, kicking, and catching moves, including
several very whimsical ones. Already (only hours after seeing the act) I
can't remember if Kris next did a three top hat routine or a three ball
routine; in any case, he did both of them. The three ball routine
was very fast and
smooth, but none of the moves stand out in my memory as being especially
unique. The three top hat routine is incredible. He appears to be able
to do anything with three top hats that one can do with either three
balls or three clubs. He does lots of under the leg moves, back bounces,
head catches (naturally), hat flips, and so on. The act is concluded
with a three cigar box routine in which the moves. are more delicate,
tinier, smoother than I imagined was possible with cigar boxes. The
finale of the cigar box routine is Kris's renowned one, two, and three
pirouettes. Kris makes good use of music in his act, especially to
emphasize the contrast of certain deliberately jerky moves with the
smoothness of the rest of his act. He has fine rapport with the
audience, spicing his act with an occasional whimsical move, and making
the most of a near miss by implicitly enlisting the audience as a
coconspirator in his slightly illicit save. The rest of the specialty
acts were also excellent, and the rest of the show was suitably
spectacular.
Ivor
Price who many IJA members know, is working as a clown at the Circus
Circus.
Ivor includes juggling in his repertoire. 1vor reports that he and his
son performed with 100 other clowns on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. Also,
1vor was filmed in two scenes from a new TV pilot entitled
"Vegas" which has lots of stars. Finally, Ivor was recently in
some scenes in a movie starring Mark Hamil entitled "Sting
Ray."
According
to both Ivor and Kris, Mike Chirrick was in Las Vegas until recently,
but left because of health problems.
Also
according to Ivor John McPeak
recently performed three shows at the Circus Circus, and I believe Kris
told me that McPeak is scheduled to go with the Globetrotters
international unit.
Both
Ivor and Kris noted that the Comedy juggler Dieter Tasso was performing
in Las Vegas, at the Hilton, I think.
--
Dave Walden
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