The last act was Rhys Thomas's Kitchenary Juggling with a Renegade twist. After setting up six long, wooden dowels, he spun large china soup tureens one at a time atop them. After setting each one, Rhys stepped in front of the table, faced the audience with his back to the spinning bowls, and did plate manipulation and talked until the audience's screams brought his attention back to the bowls. Then he would leap back to save and re-spin the wobbly bowls. He repeated this until he added the sixth bowl and they were all going strong. Then he simply bowed and walked off the stage, while the bowls fell and crashed to the floor and the audience went nuts.

 

Other Renegaders included Mag Hughes & Kendal KIC in a highly choreographed foot­bag duet, Louie Lichtenstein barbecueing Barney, and a great demonstration of free-form club passing by Jeff Napier and our next-to­farthest-traveled juggler, Bruno Saxer of Berne, Switzerland.

 

Saturday morning began with the gatherings of different prop manipulators. The club passers found each other and, viruslike, conjugated in patterns that grew more and more complex as the day proceeded. The three- and four-object trick specialists went into silent, solitary routines, slowly warming up while scoping out the competition. The numbers mavens staked their territorial claims, making sure of enough open space to safely ply the skies, and then craned their necks, exposing Adams apples to the rafters. The diaboloists and devil stickers whacked and pumped away at their instruments like adolescents frantically dreaming of the current absent idol.

 

And the balancers... Well, I noticed Tom Cronin, an expensive SLR camera on tripod balanced on his chin, grinning madly while waiting for the shutter timer to elapse and take his picture from five feet above!

 

This year, in the absence of James Ernest, I lead the workshop on Contact Juggling and Palm-Rolling. I passed out about 200 balls to the crowd, including a year's supply of new golf balls. The purpose of the golf balls was to show how much easier it is to learn palm­rolling tricks when you used smaller balls. You can then work gradually up to larger, performance-size balls. I pointed out that billiard and superballs work just as well as crystals or silicones for palm rolling.

 

I moved on to one-ball contact juggling. Rather than start with the basics, I demonstrated some moves I had been working on for the last year and showed some of my fancier transfers. I recommended that, rather than reinvent the wheel, people buy Ernest's book Contact Juggling. We compared the moves of Michael Moschen and Tony Duncan, and talked about finding ones own style. The major closing point was that we all build on the work of others, and that if you stick with it you can't help but add to the art form.

 

A new workshop for me was the Street Performers Forum. Laura Green led it, assisted by long-time professionals Henrik Bothe, Cliff Spenger, Tash Wesp, Scotty Meltzer, Louie (David) Lichtenstein and Charlie Brown. The usual question about "How much do you get?" was immediately answered by "That's none of your business!" They then covered the essential details of putting it all together and avoiding trouble. I was relieved to find out that, according to Scotty Meltzer, the first 100 street performances do not count. The session could easily have continued for another hour, but we dispersed for dinner and the Juggling and Vaudeville Extravaganza.

 

About 750 people showed up for The Extravaganza in a large hall in downtown Portland. Miz Tilly (Laura Green) prepped the audience with a cheering contest and introduced the first of what turned out to be several parent-child acts: Mag and Chris Hughes, the Mills Family, Merry Mary & Little Mary, and four local rhythmic gymnasts (their parents were in the audience).

 

Andy Demetre did some very believable tour jets and a fast and low club routine. Charlie Brown whizzed through hats and cigar boxes. Rob Brown (as Unicycle Boy) deftly roped, tied, boloed and rode his unicycles. And Brian Patz did some of his ever-more-highly-polished act. After intermission Rhys Thomas did slack­rope danger juggling. Pops and Kenny Schults presented some amazing footbag work and Merry Mary walked a pole that two volunteers held on their shoulders. Don Fogel and Mag Hughes floated Frisbees as if they were anti­gravity devices, and the Mud Bay Jugglers did slow-motion juggling.

 

Pops and Louie Lichtenstein helped (and hindered) Miz Tilly's introductions, and added to the effect of confusion in the management. The best audience response of the evening was for Jill Westover (a past IJA winner), who did multiple batons and glow-batons. Everyone was appreciative of Jills efforts to work around the low proscenium arch and curtain. Her batons spiraled up and out of sight for so long that it seemed they must have gone through the roof or gotten hung up in the rafters.

 

She got a standing ovation, and the next day received the Ben Linder award for Most Inspirational Juggler. (Ben was a Portland juggler and engineer who went to Nicaragua to help design and build a small hydroelectric project for an isolated village. He was killed by Contras while sitting at a stream, sketching in his notebook.)

 

I was particularly impressed with Henrik Bothe's use of glow-sticks. He made a glow­stick figure of himself and played with moving his head about, independently of his body. He also used lighted airplane taxi-batons for club swinging! I saw him make spectacular use of glow-sticks at Lopez, last year, in a totally different act. Its nice to see someone grab an idea and immediately chart new territory.

 

Another highlight act was Henrik and Charlie Brown as The Flaming Heterosexuals. Dressed in polka dot boxers shorts and tutus, they brought a bit of Renegade to the show. It was very well received, and capped a delight­ful three hours of entertainment.

 

On Sunday morning there were work­shops and open juggling in the gym. Then almost everything came to a halt with the beginning of the Portland Festival's first-ever game of Combat. With more than 150 combatants, the sound of clubs whacking the floor was thunderous.

 

Later, in an attempt to bring it to a peaceful conclusion, Tash Wesp grabbed the microphone and insisted that everyone join in a group hug. But the effect of everyone crushed into an immense, affectionate, mass-grope, was almost as dangerous as the combat!

 

But the transition did take the edge off the last and only official competitive event of the festival- The 3-Egg Enduro. The Enduro took place on the lawn outside. Competitors began with at least three eggs, and were eliminated when they had fewer than three left. The remaining eggs were to be disposed of in any way that seemed like a good idea at the time! We ended up using all 15 dozen eggs on hand.

After starting everyone off, I was probably one of the first to drop and actually crack an egg. But the lawn hadn't been mowed in a while, and many drops just bounced. Last year's winner, Ben Schoenberg, took off joggling around the track in hopes of avoiding an egging, but dropped halfway around. Many of the losing contestants followed my example of hurling their remaining eggs into the crowd of onlookers, while shouting, "There are no spectators!"

 

The winner and new Defender of the Upper Left Coast had a time of 17 minutes and 45 seconds, three minutes longer than Ben's old record. Unfortunately, he disappeared chasing his final eggers-on before I could find out his identity. (Please get in touch so I can send you your prize!) It was a good but somewhat sticky ending to a fun festival.