Of the 165 days of EXPO it only rained 35. When it did rain, a few of the acts would be accommodated indoors while the rest of us figured we'd stand in the rain to work for anyone who would stand in the rain to watch. One day during a monsoon our PL directed us under an overhang by a pavilion. We waded through enormous churning puddles to get there and began our show. During our club-stealing bit, Fred looked out at a sea of wet, miserable, rubber-bundled folks huddled under umbrellas, steam rising from their sodden skins, and yelled, "What's the matter with you people?! It's RAINING!!"

 

I'd love to go on with these sparkling reminiscences, but I think I should get to the highlights. Following is a list of all the juggling acts at EXPO that I can remember. My apologies to anyone not mentioned.

 

Representing Canada were: Les Voila, Daniel Ie Bateleur, Derek Scott, Circus Shmirkus, Archer Mayling, Red the Juggler, and Dick & Dick. From the USA were: The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Vaudeville Nouveau, Slap Happy, Garbo, Alexis Lee, Fred Anderson, and Jim Jackson. From Britain: Chris & Alex and RA RA ZOO. From Spain, Marceline Y Sylvestre. Finally, Dr. Hot and Neon, of no fixed address. At one time during the summer, juggling was so prevalent that when a new guy strolled into the dressing room I'd ask, "And what kind of juggling act are you?"

 

Here are a few mini-reviews of some acts:

· Chris & Alex: These two Britains perform an excellently crafted, very entertaining show. They portray a pair of impeccably attired nerds who are very nervously attempting to put on a juggling act. They set out a blanket, count the crowd, move the audience about until they've achieved an eye-pleasing symmetry, and begin.

 

They start with two oversized suitcases and do some neat maneuvers, including 180-degree turns without moving the case. From the suitcases they pull out clubs. Chris gets his three out and passes with Alex, but Alex has a rough time extracting his. They work from three up to seven. As each club enters the pattern Alex becomes more and more distraught.

 

After they've "mastered" the clubs, they try six real wine bottles back-to-back. For their finish they enlist the aid of a youngster from the crowd to help them up onto giraffe unicycles and to hand them six torches. At the end of the show they are totally dishevelled. Their shirts are torn and hanging out. Chris is missing clumps of hair and their faces are streaked with soot. A splendid show.

 

· Marceline Y Sylvestre: Playa married couple who barely like each other. Sylvestre, the henpecked husband, tries his best to support the juggling displays of Marceline. They have a nice bit right at the beginning of their show when they organize the audience. Marceline scurries around the circle showing people where to stand while Sylvestre very dutifully follows behind spilling out a corn starch boundary across their feet.

 

While Sylvestre is apologetically dusting off their shoes, Marceline does some nice five ball tricks, including a lift bounce off a drum head. One of their neatest ideas was the illusion of underwater cigar boxes. Marceline, dressed in wetsuit, mask and fins, did some nice floaty-Iooking box tricks.. .When she dropped one, Sylvestre heroically tore off his coat and "dove in" to save it.

 

· Red the Juggler: Red was one of the best known jugglers at EXPO. If someone arrived for his show just as he was finishing, he'd start all over again. Red, who used to be a boxer, is obsessed with the challenge of numbers. He'd say, "It's not how many times you drop'em, but how many times you pick'em up!  Some of the more difficult stuff Red does in his show includes: a long five ball routine, including very high throws and a ball tossed in by an audience member; a six ball Mills Mess multiplex; a very long seven balls; an eight ball multiplex; five torches; and a finish trick of chin balancing a chair while idling on a unicycle and juggling two blades and a club.

 

Red is very good at selling his high-level tricks. People leave knowing that they've seen some hard-core stuff. He makes his own props and his parting words of advice were, "If you want to get good, you've got to pick them buggers up!"

 

· Dr. Hot and Neon Circus Theatre: Bill Galvin and Steve Mock present a theatrical blend of juggling styles. They do hats, canes, ping-pong balls, clubs, boxes, stacking cups, apple eating, giraffe unicycles, a three person cage and a lot of percussion effects. The highlights for me were Dr. Hot's classic three box routine and a lovely and gentle finale with banjo ukuleles. Hot and Neon each cascade three differently tuned ukuleles and pluck out an ethereal rendition of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy. " There was something very haunting about the simple act of cascading bringing forth such quiet beauty. A lyrical end to the kinetic frenzy of our art.

 

· Derek Scott: Nick-named Super Clown by the press. Any time a memo arrived for the entertainers it was because of something Derek had done. EXPO insisted that all performers had to wear shirts, so Derek simply cut the back and sleeves off of his. With three bean bags, a rubber nose, three cigar boxes and the three oldest Todd Smith clubs in existence, Scott routinely did 60-minute shows to huge crowds. Watching him underlines the rule that people don't care as much about the juggling as they do about the juggler.