Opening of Juggling Store Features Rare Performance

By Bill Giduz

 

Francis Brunn doesn't generally do grand openings. The honorable senior artiste of the juggling world is accustomed to clubs like the Lido and the Tigerpalast, rather than shopping malls.

 

But Brunn made an exception in mid-August when he came to Washington to help celebrate the grand opening of the Juggling Capitol in the Old Post Office Pavilion on Pennsylvania Avenue. He wouldn't have done it for just anyone, but the new retail juggling apparatus outlet is a venture of Brunn's friend Neil Stammer.

 

A large crowd, including many area jugglers eager to see Brunn's first appearance on American soil in years, gathered in the cavernous atrium of the nouveau-mall for the show. They were also witness to the first American appearance in quite a while of Stammer himself, who has been living and performing in various places around the world for the past five years. The show was ably completed with acts by comic mime Won Israel and dancer Nathalie Enterline, Brunn's assistant and companion for the past 11 years.

 

The show overshadowed the reason it was produced, but the opening of the first retail store in the U.S.A. devoted exclusively to juggling represents big news in itself. The store came together in a hurry after Stammer returned to America in March with the intention of publishing a novel. He came to Washington to stay with David Gripp, a former amateur street juggler he had met at die Jonglerie, a juggling shop in Berlin in 1989.

 

He and Gripp, a lawyer who had worked in international business, began fantasizing about opening a juggling shop like one of the many which have become popular in Europe. They looked half-heartedly at suburban shopping malls in the Washington area, then got very excited when they found 950-square-feet of open space in the Post Office Pavilion.

 

Though the space was small, the location in a high-traffic tourist mall was perfect. While most malls attract only local clients, tourists from throughout the country and world wander into the Post Office Pavilion on their trek from the White House to the Capitol Building, or to grab lunch in its food court after a tough morning wandering around the Smithsonian Museum next door.

 

They negotiated a lease in a hurry, began ordering merchandise from manufacturers and opened the shop in mid-July. Stammer said the first month's sales exceeded the business plan projections, but Gripp cautioned that they need a year's cycle to ascertain that the business can survive. Though it's not the type of living that either of them could make through other means, it's what they both want to do.

 

The shop is perched on the mezza­nine level of the mall, on a balcony area overlooking the food court and shops below. The shop is separated from the outside not by walls, but by a low brick barrier that provides only token separation from the crowds streaming by. It also forces the duo to pack all their stock into a back room each evening and unpack it each morning. But the open concept also means no problems with ceiling height, as the mall atrium rises spectacularly 150 feet above the shop floor. to a giant glass skylight.

 

The space was jammed with visiting jugglers, curious passers-by, well-wishers and autograph seekers following the grand opening show. Brunn stayed for more than an hour. He dismissed the show he had just performed and talked eagerly instead of a show of ten variety acts he is producing to tour in Europe this winter, and of hopes to tour a similar show in America in the future. A professional juggler now for more than 50 years, Brunn is living in New York City: Though age and several operations have slowed him down, he said he performed in Washington and will perform in Europe this summer because he loves it, an emotion visible in his unmatched intensity on stage.