Everyone knows the old American superstition that a black cat crossing your path is bad luck. Atsuko Koga's father agrees, but it wasn't a black cat that crossed his daughter's path. It was a unicycle. Since, life was never the same for this graduate of Japan's Nagasaki University.

 

When she first caught sight of it, Koga knew she was not destined to handle domestic chores and raise children. To this day, her father still wonders why he allowed her to take a part-time job in a circus ticket booth.

 

Instead of bouncing a grandchild on his knee, his daughter is in Las Vegas, bouncing a tennis racket back and forth between two sticks. Koga is a spotlight juggler, performing under the big top at Circus Circus Hotel Casino.

 

"It's never too late to do what you really want to do," Koga smiles. "Ten years ago, I was a lousy juggler."

 

The audience that gathers around Koga every time she performs would never believe this. "Child prodigy" is among the whispers you'll hear during a show. "Not true," she might whisper back if someone would listen, but the audience members are too mesmerized to hear her. They're captivated by her ability to bounce balls, square blocks and even coins along the ribs of a twirling parasol. At one point, she even spins an oversized parasol with a soccer-sized ball.

 

The climax of her performance is equally unique. She designed the three tiered parasol that has become the signature of her act. From one tier to the next, the ball bounces down three levels and then back up, guided only by Koga's talent to spin the parasol at the right speed.

 

"I always look for ways to make my material unique and interesting.. . mysterious," says Koga. "Juggling from the Orient needs this kind of flair to capture the imagination."

 

The audience members aren't the only ones with an imagination. Coupled with determination, Koga is a master at it. From the day she first saw the unicycle, it took her five years and countless spills before she could ride it. Then, in 1985, she decided to visit America and pedal 200 miles from Chicago to Detroit. In Detroit, she attended the National Unicycle Meet, the Unicycling Society of America's annual event and her career began to take shape.

 

"I visited America several times for these unicycle meets," says Koga. "On one of these visits, I attended a circus and clowning convention in New jersey and bought a juggling book."

 

The book, all 160 pages of it, presented a new challenge for Koga. Besides learning how to juggle, she had to learn English to read it.

 

"Even the simplest juggling techniques were difficult to understand," she says. "Not because I couldn't do them, but because I didn't understand English. "

 

Koga laughs about it now, but she was determined enough to attend a circus act performing school in Bristol, England. After, she toured Europe until America beckoned her again.

 

"I really liked Europe," Koga says. "But in England, everyone is very settled in what they do. I was more attracted to the American dream... you can do and be anything if you only work hard enough."

 

By 1990, Koga returned to America with plans to ride her unicycle from Los Angeles to New York. Before she started her journey, she was asked to make several entertainment appearances all over the United States, including Alaska and Walt Disney World's EPCOT Center. According to Casting Director Sonny Anderson, she was very well­received in the Japan Pavilion because her performance was a "culturally unique art form."

 

As Koga's popularity grew, it often required her to travel more than 500 miles to make the next scheduled performance. Her determination and praise from people like Anderson eventually led to a 15-month contract with Circus Circus. Although the contract recently ended, Koga has high expectations to continue performing for Circus Circus family patrons. Renovations to Circus Circus' Midway could give audiences even more chances to see Koga's skills in action. All of the Midway's big top performances are temporarily being moved to the Circus Circus Theme Park, Grand Slam Canyon, and because of rigging problems, aerial acts will be temporarily discontinued until the Midway renovation is complete.

 

Koga hopes this will mean even more performance times for her act at Circus Circus because she enjoys the families that visit there. If not, Koga jokes that her father might follow through on his age-old threat, now jest, an arranged marriage in Japan.