by John Nations

 

The lJA's founders intended for the annual festival to serve as a forum for the exchange of ideas on juggling. With the disappearance of Vaudeville entertainment, juggling was in danger of disappearing as an art form. The founders' vision in Pittsburgh in 1947 was to provide both a locale and a motivation for the continued interaction of jugglers and the development of new routines. Nowhere was this theme more visible than at the Teams Championship of the 50th annual festival. The contest, which paid $1000 to the winning team, was an exciting blend of fresh new concepts and va.riations of tricks and patterns from previous festivals. Almost every act showed both modern innovations and reiterations of classic techniques.

 

The top two teams presented the judges with a challenge, because both were well-rehearsed, energetic and technically advanced. This year's gold medal winners were Mark and Charlie Peachock, two brothers from Ohio performing as "Free FaIL" Both Peachocks are well­known in IJA festival practice halls for their technical expertise as solo jugglers, and Charlie entered the Individual Championship in 1994. The pair's winning act showcased the advantage of being able to practice together frequently, and their combined fluency in solo juggling helped limit them to very few drops as a duo under pressure.

 

The act began with ring juggling, with Mark dropping a three ring juggle back to Charlie, who went into four with a ring he was holding. Similarly, Mark added a fifth ring to Charlie's dropback of four, and then Charlie stole the five cascade back. They began passing six "ultimates" - both left and right hands passing with no self throws, a pioneering style used to win the IJA teams in 1985 and 1992. Mark pulled a seventh ring off his neck into seven and Charlie repeated this to eight, with the ultimate patterns changing smoothly each time. By the time they passed nine ultimates, the space between them was a rapid blur of rings. Charlie then collected the rings and tossed them three at a time, frisbee style, onto Mark's arms and neck.

 

The focus of the act was fast-paced club interaction, starting with a three club drop forward with a half pirouette and a leap frog steal. Many IJA influences could be seen in the routine as the Peachocks used creative variations on old favorites. Side by side with five clubs a la Crash and Burn (1994), they performed crisscrossing flat front showers, and a Mills Mess variation that got a lot of applause from the crowd and called up memories of the Gizmo Guys and Clockwork. Mark passed six club chops with Charlie while lying on his back, and Charlie threw ultimate chops and backcrosses with both hands in a thunder shower. With seven clubs the brothers took turns doing a four club double-single while the other cascaded three. Mark ran smooth seven club singles over his shoulder, and their seven back-to-back switched immediately into front-to-front ultimates. They finished with a nice run of eight clubs back-to-back and a nine club triple spin pass.

 

The Peachocks spent three months working out their final act. They perform at regional juggler's festivals and are interested in working on cruise ships.

Right on the heels of the Peachocks was "Flight Patterns" - Jimmy Robertson and Todd Blair. Their energetic and light-hearted club passing routine inspired the greatest crowd response of the Teams Championships. Their opening immediately amused the audience with a "muscleman" pose to the song "Freeze Frame." Then they performed three club walkaround steals that became runarounds, with Blair holding up "bunny ears" behind Robertson, and getting elbowed in retaliation. After a leapfrog steal, they added another club for four club takeouts and interactions, including side steals, duo chin rolls, side steals and walkarounds. They did a five club side by side interactive shower, first with outside hands and then with inside hands throwing to the other person.

 

With six clubs, they performed the "Shiva" trick, two interlaced three club juggles with one man standing behind the other for a "four­armed juggler" effect. Showering six clubs, they threw solid chops, shoulder throws, and "Ignatovs" - pairs of opposite spinning self doubles under high self tosses. The audience cheered for their alternating kickups, and again when Robertson performed a forward dive roll that switched the pattern into ultimate passing. They kicked up into seven doubles, and included a pirouette, a breakdown and buildup back to seven, solid single spin shoulder throws, and back-to-back passing before finishing with ultimate singles. They kicked another club into eight doubles, switched to singles, paused for a quick pose and comic relief break dancing by Robertson, then finished the act with a nine club triple spin pass.

 

Roberston and Blair only get to work together during the summer, performing at King's Dominion theme park in Virginia. The rest of the year they meet at occasional juggler's festivals while Robertson works in Atlanta and Blair studies veterinary medicine at North Carolina State University. During the medal presentations, they joked around with the Peachocks about the unintentional similarities between the two top acts, noticing that both teams even chose the same type of shirt for the performance.

 

The third place team was "Stoolies" - Reid Belstock and Aaron Schettler from Colorado, who are both graduates of Ringling Clown College. Adhering to a motto of "let's entertain 'em!" they presented a refreshing departure from club passing. The entire act was based on clowning and interactive ball juggling while fighting over a stool. They began by pulling the stool away from each other while side stealing three balls. In one move, Belstock tried to go for the stool and got slugged by Schettler, propelling him into a Buster Keaton "180 fall," a front flip onto his back. They also included a five ball pass pattern where the balls rolled down the stool. That ended with a back roll by Belstock, and a five ball solo cascade with takeouts and putbacks.

 

Belstock's exaggerated expressions projected comedy even to the furthest audience in the balcony, and their well-rehearsed choreography gave the Stoolies a high enough performance score to edge out two other more technical acts. Schettler explained that in the circus, all the acts are competing simultaneously for the crowd's eye, so "It was nice to be on stage with just one other person and get some attention." The two men work together at Elitch Gardens in Denver, and practiced for a month to polish their championship act.

 

"Redefining Gravity" featured Heather Hacket Brinegar and Darin Marriott from Columbus, Ohio. Their club act featured the groundbreaking idea of using double spin self throws for numbers passing. They passed ten clubs, all double spins, instead of the traditional triple-pass, single-self style. Hacket-Brinegar explained that she didn't quite have the arm strength to throw triples, so the self doubles bought them the time needed to pass nine and ten clubs. By the end of the festival, their innovation was spreading around the gym ­ yet another example of jugglers influencing each other through the IJA. Their act also included eight club passing with Marriott on a unicycle and Hacket-Brinegar on a rolling globe.

 

Perennial numbers champion Bruce Sarafian and his Swedish friend Hanna Lundgren performed a ball juggling act called "The Silvers." It began with both jugglers balancing poles on their chins while lying on the floor, and each juggler performing a three pole balance using chin and hands. Using silver beanbags, they juggled five balls each in synchronized reverse cascades, and five cascades while balancing poles. They did five ball drop backs and steals, including a steal by Lundgren of Sarafian's overhead five cascade. The finale was synchronized seven ball juggles with catches in belt pockets.

 

The two jugglers met in Gothenberg, Sweden, at the 1995 European Juggler's Convention. Lundgren showed Sarafian her seven ball cascade and then asked him to "teach her how to juggle!" The two have been practicing together in Sarafian's home town of Orlando, Fla., where he does nighttime shows at Church Street Station and works days as a computer programmer.

 

The other team entered was Jay Gilligan and Ochen Kaylan, who presented ball and club passing in the austere style that has become a Gilligan trademark.