When Cindy Marvell won the IJA Individual Championship in Baltimore, she became the first woman to win the IJA's top honor. Her carefully crafted routine matched highly technical juggling with artistic dance choreographed to George Gershwin tunes.

 

She has been a fixture at IJA conventions and mini-conventions for several years, gaining respect through her tremendous skill and attracting friends through her infectious smile and warm manner. Juggler's World editor Bill Giduz talked to her after the convention about how a shy woman from New York City came to be an IJA winner.

 

JW: Congratulations on your championship! It must have taken some courage to become the first woman on that particular IJA stage. How long had you been thinking about competing?

 

CM: From my first IJA convention in Purchase in 1983, I knew I would compete some day. I was considering it last year, but it was my senior year of college and I was writing a thesis. This year, though, I've been juggling full time. I finally came up with the idea of doing a routine to Gershwin's Piano Waltzes and Rhapsody in Blue. But I didn't decide definitely about the competition until the Groundhog Day festival, when I did part of the routine for the show there and it went well.

 

JW: Your routine matched the music beautifully. How did you go about putting the whole thing together?

 

CM: I was in Japan performing for seven weeks, March 15 - May 10, and that trip had a big effect on the choreography. I worked there on interpreting the music, which inspired a sort of Gene Kelly dance style. Then there was an abstract side of the routine inspired by the things I saw in Japan. At the end of the routine when I go into my "pretzel shape," kneeling with one leg over the other, that's a very Asian sustained picturesque movement.

 

The piano at the end evokes quick, extravagant, exaggerated moves. So I finished with some ribbon twirling, with the ribbon decorated as piano keys. I didn't want to end with five clubs, that's too generic, I wanted to move it around again.

 

JW: What did putting this routine together teach you about juggling?

 

CM: The routine I brought back from Japan had a lot more tricks in it. You know, it's not the tricks you do that make the routine good, it's is the tricks you decide to leave out! That's what makes your routine different from the practice session, where you do everything. It's difficult to put to­gether a competition routine because you minimize those tricks. I cut out half the tricks in my four club routine before I finished it. That let me build up to certain tricks and make a bigger impact with them. And I didn't drop in the whole 2: 10 of the four clubs!