The New York Times

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 1997

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, IN THE CENTER RING…

AFTER DECADES IN THE SPOTLIGHT, LOTTIE BRUNN

TAKES TIME TO BASK

By CINDY MARVELL

Ask anyone who knows about the art of tossing clubs, rings or balls into the air–and keeping them there elegantly–and chances are you will hear homage paid to Lottie Brunn.

Ms. Brunn has not performed since the mid-1980‘s, but even now, at 71, she looks as if all she needs is a pair of spiked heels (in fact, she still wears them), some fishnet stockings and a sequined leotard to come theatrically alive in the spotlight of the center ring.

From her first professional engagement as a teen-ager in her native Germany through a career with the Ringling show and on the nightclub circuit, Ms.

Brunn became known for speed (her billing: “the world’s faster female juggler”), first in tandem with her older brother, Francis, and then later as a solo act.

How she came to live quietly in a trailer park here in Bergen County almost 40 years ago is merely the function of a life spent on the road: she had traveled to New York City in 1959 to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show” and needed a place to park. There were other performers in the park then, she said, and trailer life was always part of being peripatetic–if not trailers, then hotels, but rarely apartments or houses. Circus performers and vaudevillians often worked 11 months a year, seven days a week, two or three shows a day.

It has been 60 years since Ms. Brunn started practicing with her brother in Aschaffenburg, their hometown near Frankfurt. Francis, now 74, still performs, but Lottie, troubled by arthritis in her neck and wrists from a lifetime of juggling, has limited her involvement to occasional teaching and coaching.

In recent years she has taught or lectured at the State university of New York at Purchase, Ringling‘s Clown College and the Big Apple Circus School in East Harlem, as well as at local clubs. Teaching the technique is one thing; learning to deal with the inevitable–dropping things–is another:

“I had some shows, there were no drops, and I didn‘t think they were good,” she said, “Then I had some shows when I dropped a few times and the shows were great.” It’s all part of a day’s work, she said.

“If it happens in the middle and I do it again,” she added, “I get a bigger hand the second time” the trick is performed.

I first met Ms. Brunn at a juggling club in Hackensack, where she shook my hand with a grip of steel and insisted on watching me practice. (“It has to have a sequence, a meaning,” she said, “It has to build to a finish”).

But I had heard about her years before, when I was 14, an aspiring juggler toting balls, clubs, and rings to Falling Debris, a juggling club I belonged to in Manhattan. Mr. Brunn‘s picture was on the cover of Juggler’s World magazine. Wearing a black lace-covered leotard, with a headpiece cradling a ball balanced on her forehead and a ball in each hand, she seemed undaunted by the spectacle of two more balls hovering impossibly out of her reach.

She looked quite different from the jugglers I practiced with, a crew my mother described as “a bunch of 26-year-old guys in undershirts.” My father, a physicist, had learned three balls as a child for reasons nobody could remember; my aunt had taken juggling breaks while working on her doctorate. I had high hopes of forming a trio with my younger sister and brother and performing in my high school cabaret.

I was pleased to learn that Ms. Brunn did not originally come from a circus family, either. Her mother, like mine, had seemed a bit aloof from it all.

“My mother never wanted me to do it,” Ms. Brunn confessed. “We used to break everything in the house.”

Except for the miniature silver elephant on the railing outside Ms. Brunn‘s front door, there is no hint the woman who lives there appeared with the Greatest Show on Earth, or headlined at Radio City Music Hall, or toured with Spike Jones and the Harlem Globetrotters. To neighbors she is simply Lottie, the lively woman with the irrepressible smile who still moves with a dancer’s grace. But inside her home is a compact career museum.

On a recent visit there, I was met at the door by Ms. Brunn, whose feet were clad in her trademark high heels. Photographs of the Brunn Dynasty, as juggling historian Karl Heinz Zeithan has dubbed her family, decorate the walls.

Meet the relatives: there is Michael Chirrick, her son, spinning three volleyballs (one on a mouth-stick) while executing a backward roll. There is Ernest Montego, her half-brother, riding a unicycle as numerous rings circle around his body. And of course there is Francis, whose rigorous style of performance and endless devotion to the art have made him a legend in his field, caught in a rare moment of stasis.

Her husband, Ted Chirrick, pointed out that juggling is not a field in which one performer can ride on the coattails of another.

“When I see a magician, I think maybe he went out and bought the trick,” he said, “but in juggling, you have to earn it, and the audience knows it‘s hard.”

Ms. Brunn‘s regimen attested to that. “I used to practice five, six, seven hours per day,” she said. “The more I warmed up, the better I felt. Even doing two or three shows, I would practice the same.” On the road, when she was clocking about 45,000 miles a year, cramped quarters posed no problem. She practiced on her knees if there was not enough ceiling height.

Although Francis became her partner, mentoring started with her father, Michael, the owner of a restaurant and a gymnasium. He taught himself to juggle in a French prisoner of war camp during World War I. Inspired by a touring circus, Michael Brunn practiced juggling with stones and later moved on the apples and oranges.

Francis was sent to Berlin to attend a special acrobatic school and wrote letters home charting his progress. “He wrote that he could do three balls in one hand,” Ms. Brunn recalled. “I said: ‘That’s impossible. I can’t even do three with two hands!”

Eventually, she mastered four rings in each hand-simultaneously, at age 14. When Francis returned, the duo practiced with an exuberance that set spectators buzzing, and local fame led to the start of their professional career in 1939.

“A small stage show came to our village, lots of acts,” Ms. Brunn said. “Somebody knew we were practicing. They came out to the farm and asked would we be in the show.” Their performance so electrified the audience that they were offered a contract on the spot. “From this day,” she said, “we never came back.”

Their first major engagement, in Vienna, is one of the few performances to survive on film, and Ms. Brunn reluctantly pulls out the tape. “Juggling on video–boring,” she said. “You have to have been there, you have to have seen it.”

Still, one can see the start of Ms. Brunn‘s development from a mild- mannered assistant to a fiery superwoman of the stage. In the early years, Francis seems ready to burst out of his skin as he rushed forth to demonstrate the tricks that make him famous. Ms. Brunn seems more tentative, as if reluctant to draw attention away from her brother. Only at the end, when they take their final bow, do they seem to be true partners.

Though beloved by European audiences during the war, the Brunns always dreamed of continuing their career in America. In 1947 John Ringling saw their act in Spain and helped arrange their immigration. Ms. Brunn still has a gold Statue of liberty charm dated 3–23-62, the day she became a citizen.

“When I made my American Citizenship here in Hackensack, I studied,” she said. “I was pretty good. They had my whole file, everything. It was such a kick when I said, ‘I‘m more nervous now than when I opened at Radio City!”

The radio was playing, and Honeysuckle Rose came on. “This is the music Lottie used,” Mr. Chirrick recalls. “It’s too slow. Just bring it up a bit and it’s beautiful for juggling.” He ought to know: Mr. Chirrick (who met his wife backstage at a circus where he was assistant stage manager) crafted her special clubs and saw to it that her music was played correctly. Ms. Brunn practiced until the night before her son, Michael, was born in 1952 and resumed performing as a soloist six weeks later at the Big Top Sealtest Show in Camden.

Later, she hit the nightclub circuit.

“I played the Savoy in London,” she said. “I played every number one club in this country. Every town had beautiful clubs, and the newspapers came. Spokane, Portland, Montreal, Cleveland, Tommy Dorsey‘s show. Everything is gone. It‘s all finished now.”

Ms. Brunn kept a clipping from her favorite review, which appeared in the Montreal Gazette when she performed at the Bellevue Casino. Not that she needs proof-she still remembers it word for word: “Miss Brunn, sister to the well-known Francis, has all the speed and fire of her brother‘s act plus some definitely attractive features of her own. The Brunns are, without much doubt, the fastest catchers and tossers in show business and watching either one perform is an object lesson in what constant practice can do in the way of split-second timing.”

Ms. Brunn was such a hit in clubs that she almost rejected the chance of a lifetime.

“In 1957 they asked me to come to Ringling,” she recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, no, only nightclubs. I can‘t work a circus alone.’ Before that, I only performed solo when Francis was sick.” In the end she accepted and stayed almost a year. To this day she remains the only female juggler to have performed solo in the center ring for Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey.

SPECTACLE

A Quarterly Journal of the Circus Arts

FALL 2003

KEEPING IT IN THE AIR

By Cindy Marvell

From high atop the conductor’s podium, Ofek Shilton raised his baton. On stage before him, the orchestra, dressed in black, waited for the downbeat. The piece began: surprise! Maestro Shilton is an eight-year-old juggler from Israel. The ensemble included his older brother and juggling partner, Segev Shilton of Raanana, near Tel Aviv. This was no ordinary ensemble, but the IJO, which stands for “International Juggling Orchestra.” The cast included 22 jugglers from 13 countries. This musical melee— cleverly coordinated and humorously conceived by juggler Antonio Benitez of Spain—could only strike up at a juggling convention.

“IJO” is a bit of word play on the IJA (International Juggler’s Association), which invented the concept of juggling conventions (now called festivals) in 1947, hosting annual events in North America or Canada. Eventually, the idea spread to Europe, and the European Juggling Convention, known as the EJC, evolved into a weeklong event attracting as many as 3500 jugglers. This year, the IJA held its event at Circus Circus in Reno, Nevada, for a week in July; the EJC migrated to Svendborg, a seaside village in on the island of Fyn in Denmark, for eight days in August.

These events capped off a good season for jugglers within the wider world of circus. A record number of juggling acts (seven) entered and won awards at Cirque de Demain this year. Timo Wopp of Germany, who juggled hats, balls and clubs, won a bronze medal. Taras, a Ukrainian graduate of the Circus School of Kiev who juggled rings within a German Wheel, diaboloists “Les 7 Doigts de la Main” and Yannick Javaudin, and ball-bouncer extraordinaire Zdenek Supka of Czechoslovakia all won special prizes.

From the United States, the LaSalle Brothers, an acrobatic-juggling duo par excellence, also won a bronze medal at Cirque de Demain. Their act was also one of the highlights of the Public Show in Reno. Marty and Jake LaSalle happen to be identical twins. They are also disciples of the renowned juggler/coach Benji Hill. In a move created for the twins, Jake leaps over Marty’s head, traveling through a five-club pattern without disrupting it (the classic move, performed with three clubs, involves stealing the clubs). 10-club passing was accomplished with the ease that used to be reserved for seven. The LaSalles have been showing great teamwork, flair and technique from a very young age. While the duo has had many offers since their performance, the brothers have temporarily postponed their international career to attend Columbia University in New York; undoubtedly, they will graduate summa can juggle.

The English-German team of Luke Wilson and Ilka Licht, winners of the Moulin Rouge Prize in Paris, closed the Public Show in Denmark. Their trademark duet club-passing piece combines original choreography, costuming and charisma. Wilson, a willowy and intense performer who also holds close-up magic titles, dresses in a classy electric blue; Ilka wears a flamboyant orange dress from which she produces more clubs as the act progresses. Their intricate club “steals” and “replacements” have become legendary among jugglers; one trade-off involves a head-to-head balance transfer. Lukaluka manages to perform such complex moves as passing seven clubs back-to-back without losing their character presence or physical flow. Licht began as a teenager in a youth circus in Germany, where she also trained as an aerialist. In one of her trademark moves, she juggles three clubs, picks up a forth with her toes, and takes it from a high extension into the juggling pattern. Wilson is a notoriously quick and agile juggler who also brings a unique style and presence to his innovative tricks. With a soundtrack combining contemporary jazz and Celtic music, lukaluka presents a highly polished performance in which every catch, glance, and toss plays to the audience and enhances the emotional content of the piece. They are regulars on the variety theater circuit in Europe, including a long run at the Krystallpalast in Leipzig. Lukaluka’s blend of artistry and athleticism makes theirs one of the acts that can effectively cross over from variety to circus. They are graduates of The Circus Space in London, where their collaboration began, and the National Center for Circus Arts in Chalons.

In addition to showcasing some of the stars, the events in Reno and Svendborg gave attendees a chance to observe up-and-coming talent. A promising and accomplished young duo with technical skills that would carry well in circus has caught the attention of jugglers worldwide. The brother-sister team of Vova and Olga Galchenko, now based in New England, trained at Russian circus school near Moscow. When their family moved to America, it did not take long for the stellar siblings to infiltrate the juggling scene with their ever-growing repertoire of club-passing skills. Olga, at 13 the only girl to qualify for the Juniors competition in Reno, can juggle five clubs on a unicycle. She also performed five in a split off the edge of the stage, and won the Flamingo award for up-and-coming female jugglers. Vova, 15, won the bronze medal in the senior competition with his difficult solo club skills. Together, the Galchenkos won the silver medal in the team competition. They pass eleven clubs in practice, and can do ten back-to-back (starting by juggling five each) in addition to a variety of five- club steals and takeaways. The duo has performed at the Crawley Circus Festival and presented a piano-playing-while-juggling piece for the bronze medal at the European Youth Circus Festival in Wiesbaden in 2002. Their practice sessions drew large crowds of jugglers, both in Reno and Denmark.

But the IJA’s Reno festival belonged to Circus Circus jugglers Bill Berry and Jonathan Root. The California duo, known as Team Rootberry, won the IJA’s team competition. Using their fluid club-passing variations, the past silver medallists created an entertaining spoof on the sports world. Bill Berry accomplished a rare feat by also winning the solo event the same night (the last person to do so was Peter Davison of the trio Airjazz). Team Rootberry’s club passing courts incessant difficulty without ever courting disaster; Root and Berry are the type of jugglers whose tricks are always on, always flowing in textbook form without ever seeming tense or belabored. Their performance style exudes great energy and passion for the craft. In his solo work, Berry’s long-limbed physique extenuates his impressive and original tricks; his novel three-ball routine attracted particular attention and won yet another award. Berry also added a rarely performed combination trick: juggling five clubs while sword swallowing. Team Rootberry nabbed the People’s Choice award from the crowd of attending jugglers; the duo then continued their run at Circus Circus.

Also competing as a solo act was Alex Chimal of Circus Chimera. Chimal, from the Yukatan, choreographs his own acts with balls and clubs. A true circus professional, Chimal pushes himself to set high standards in both technique and theatricality. One innovative club move was a kick-up into a forward roll—before catching the club. Chimal bounces seven balls on a raised platform.

Several other world-renowned Circus Circus performers appeared in the IJA’s public show at the Golden Phoenix Theater. Anthony Gatto, the towering juggling talent who first wowed convention-goers as a child prodigy, was on hand to close the show with his stunningly difficult tricks with numerous balls, clubs and rings, including a seven-club finish (until Anthony arrived on the scene, five was considered the max in club juggling).

Circuses Gatto has appeared with include Circus Knie, Australia’s Michael Edgley Circus, and Germany’s Circus Krone. He is also the only juggler ever to win the Golden Clown Award in Monte Carlo. In 2004, Gatto can be seen at the Venetian in Las Vegas, Le Faitbout in Paris, and the TigerPalast in Frankfurt. Gatto and his father, Nick, a former member of the vaudeville trio Los Gatos, taught a 4-day master class called “IDP,” designed to take participants to the next technical level. Anthony and fellow phenom Albert Lucas teamed up to present the IJA’s Bobby May Award to their fathers for their work in Los Gatos.

Another past IJA champion, Francoise Rochais of France, opened the show. Dressed in a long white gown, she performed original umbrella and ring combinations. Her trademark “flower sticks,” which resemble batons with handles, serve as clubs. Rochais is one of the few in the world capable of performing seven clubs solo, a feat she can also accomplish with fire torches. Rochais uses her elegant style to create acts with a variety of atmospheres and costuming. In Reno, her performance featured a mix of French romance and Vegas pizzazz. Rochais is a past silver medallist at Cirque l’Avenir has trained at an acrobatics school in Guangzhou, China, and with circus director Valentin Gneouchev in Moscow.

Viktor Kee, appearing at a juggling convention for the first time, lost no time in making the stage his own. Thanks to his much admired work with Cirque du Soleil, Kee has many fans in the juggling world, and they were not disappointed as he launched into action.

Kee is known for the way his fluid style of acro-dance seamlessly complements his ball juggling, rolling, and bouncing.

With so many international jugglers in Reno, what would be left to see in Denmark? Fortunately, circus has really taken off in Scandinavia, and over 2,500 jugglers attended. One of the top jugglers currently working in circus and variety theater, Shirley Dean, winner of the Princess of Circus prize, hails from Sweden. The maestro of hat and box acts, Kris Kremo of Switzerland, performed at Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen, not far from the convention site in Svendborg.

Plenty of Nordic jugglers showcased their acts in this fairytale city on the island of Fyn, birthplace of Hans Christian Anderson. Samuel Gustavsson from Stockholm began with three large rings, performing some classic moves and some of his own invention. Moving very smoothly, he worked up to five with great style and atmosphere. He has been touring internationally with Cirkus Cirkor, performing as an actor, comedian and juggler. A student of the Circus pilots school, he will attend the Suborb Circus Festival in Sweden before returning to school to work on a solo show.

Two Copenhagen jugglers, Nils Poll and Steen Offersen, showcased their solo acts. Nils Poll combined physical comedy and hat and box juggling with his comedy character. Poll, a veteran of the festival circuit, is currently on a return engagement in Japan. Offersen performed with two silver diabolos and, in an act rarely attempted, with two devil sticks. The Danish clown/juggler Tape juggled rings while balancing cigar boxes. The circus spoofers Loyal Club rode horse-unicycles and Aerius of Copenhagen performed on fabric. Ville Walo of Helsinki, Finland, performed with “square rings,” rings which really are square.

Connie Leaverton, a juggler, unicyclist and filmmaker from Austin, TX, attended the festival on her way to some European engagements at festivals and corporate events. While at the EJC, Leaverton recruited Karen Bourre of France, another graduate of London’s Circus Space, to participate in an independent film, “Trailblazers: Women Who Juggle.” Bourre had been touring with Cirque Baroque since the previous September and is also a past collaborator with the Gandini Jugglers of London.

As Leaverton filmed, Bourre ran through an incredible six and seven ball bounce sequence taken from her circus act. The variety of patterns and dancerly interaction with a high level of technique makes this another rare and intriguing example of difficult juggling extended into the realm of character and movement.

It seemed that almost all the jugglers achieving this effect had circus school backgrounds. Urs Rohrer, a Swiss juggling clown from the Basil area, attended the circus school in Weisbaden. He has also performed with circus Harlekin Liliput. Rohrer juggled up to five giant tennis balls with a clown character that radiated delight. Dafne Merijn from Holland studied dance and choreography as a student at “Etage” in West Berlin. She explained that the East Berlin school tends to focus more on skill, the West more on theater and art. Merijn rolled an orange ball around her body while performing acrobatic combinations. She also taught workshops in “contact juggling.”

This field carries a lot of controversy in the juggling world. These techniques were brought into juggling by Michael Moschen, and a number of jugglers on the professional circuit have lifted his crystal ball and bouncing acts without permission; books teaching his techniques have been published without his consent. However there are jugglers who have used the concept of ball rolling, also associated with rhythmic gymnastics, to come up with their own skills, and Merijn is one of these. Tony Duncan, a past performer with the Copenhagen Circus, is another master of this technique. As Merijn says, “contact jugglers tend to get in contact,” and for every batch of imitators there are a few who have found their own path with this zen-like art.

Juggler’s World

VOL. 43, NO. 4

JUGGLING AROUND THE REVOLUTION

HOT GEORGIAN POLITICS COOLED BY WARM WELCOME FOR INTERNATIONAL JUGGLERS

By Cindy Marvell

“The cigarette deal is OUT. Bring conservative cotton shirts to donate to the circus instead.” Such were the final instructions issued by Haggis McLeod to a group of jugglers assembled at a preliminary meeting in Verona a week before their departure for the First International Juggling Festival held in Tbilisi, Georgia, last September. We all looked forward to the trip, but had little idea what to expect beyond the spotty news reports of protests in the streets, overshadowed in the media by the Russian coup two weeks earlier. McLeod, an accomplished juggler and performer from England, reassured us that our hosts were still enthusiastically awaiting our arrival, and warned us to expect the unexpected in a country which just achieved independence from Moscow last April.

He described some of the experiences he had a few years ago while working as an actor with a Georgian theater troupe, which inspired him to organize a juggling convention in conjunction with the Georgian State Circus. A week later, almost all the 160 registered jugglers representing at least 17 countries from Wales to New Zealand managed to assemble at the airport in East Berlin, where we met American-turned-Dutch co-organizer Lee Hayes. The airport resembled a circus of sorts, as islands of juggling sprouted up amid piles of baggage and joyful reunions. The jubilant atmosphere continued on the plane to Moscow with club passing blocking the aisles as people studied their Georgian language sheets. The majority of participants came from England and America, with large contingents from Spain and France.

New Yorker Alex Pape was among the first to arrive at the Moscow domestic airport. His double-devilstick routine could be practiced just about anywhere. Informed of a possible 10-hour delay, Frank Olivier and Jeff Daymont led a three-ball workshop in the departure lounge. Henry Camus, Markus Markoni and others did some spontaneous busking for appreciative Russian travelers, while Ollie Crick from England entertained the jugglers with his inimitable sense of humor and mandolin playing.

We arrived in Tbilisi at 3 a.m. to find the host families still waiting for us. For many of us, the host family experience was memorable. Since each person was assigned to a different family, everyone experienced the convention in a totally different way. At the airport I was introduced to my 19-year-old host, Sophie, and her younger brother George, a cherubic 11-year-old. George gallantly carried the luggage upstairs to an apartment where we were warmly greeted by Granny. The apartment looks like the set from the film “Fanny and Alexander” with ornate lamps and cabinets everywhere. My room looks like a Renaissance period piece, with gritty old-fashioned grandeur. And the bed is heavenly zzzzzzz…

Monday

I caused great consternation among my hosts by washing my hair with the freezing cold faucet water instead of using boiled water from the stove. Georgians are famous for their hospitality, and breakfast is overwhelming. Granny gets up at dawn to make cheese bread, dumplings and special vegetarian dishes (bless her) from scratch. The Georgian specialty is a round, pizza-like loaf of bread about 3 inches thick and weighing several tons. Granny loves to see us eat as she bustles about, and won‘t let anyone leave the table without gaining a few pounds. Little George shows me how to sweeten the tea using various kinds of jelly (and, later in the week, champagne). He has learned quite a bit of English in school, and introduces me to his pet mouse, Zanzan. Meanwhile, back at the circus building, the juggling portion of the convention is getting underway. Already the ring is overflowing with jugglers, and the Russians have arrived.

No sooner had an orientation meeting been called than four Georgian acrobats descended from the ceiling and hovered above our heads from chords attached to their waists. They weaved various star shapes in the air as their coach called out instructions from below. Later on in the week some Western jugglers tried it and found it more difficult than it looked.

McLeod introduces interpreters Zurab Revazishvili (who speaks English better than the English) and Guram Akhobadze, who spends the week racing around and trying to see that everything goes perfectly (he is often disappointed, but nobody seems to mind). Nana Milkadze, the gracious artistic director of the circus, told us that the circus building is the second oldest in the Soviet Union. Completely circular and surrounded by columns, it rises majestically above the city on a steep hill with a grand staircase leading up to it. The audience is seated all around the ring, making it a more atmospheric and intimate setting for performances. The daily program remained the same throughout the week, although most people chose to accompany their Georgian hosts on various excursions when the schedule permitted. Max and Susi Oddball of England so enjoyed their hosts’ company that they disappeared with them for two days and returned with tales of a picturesque village in the mountains evoking envy from McLeod. Many hosts seemed puzzled by the convention format, not understanding why jugglers would want to spend time in the circus building unless required to. Every afternoon there was an optional group excursion to the old city or a nearby 11th century

church. Dinner was served in a dining hall nearby, and provided a nice opportunity for jugglers to socialize before returning for the evening show.

Tuesday

Sophie offers to take in English juggler par excellence Sean Gandini as more arrive. This evening there is a parade, modified to a gathering in a crowded square to avoid the demonstrations.

On the way there I talked with Mikhail Staroseletsky. Among the Russian jugglers in attendance, Staroseletsky is unique in that he is a dentist by profession and only juggles as a hobby. He displayed some of the best technical juggling seen at the convention. He spent the week in a juggling paradise. Earlier that day he gave a demonstration to an appreciative ring-full of jugglers in preparation for the public show. He begins with an innovative and mostly indescribable routine involving a tennis racket and up to five balls, working up to a half shower with the racket used in place of his hand. His smoothness and consistency with five and seven-ball pirouettes was very impressive, especially to those of us who attempted to keep aloft the large yet very lightweight orange balls he uses. As is traditional, he makes his own clubs but has a slower, more controlled style, methodically placing them in the air rather than flinging them ahead of time. Staroseletsky comes from Kazakhstan and his dream is to attend an IJA convention. When we arrived at the games, Staroseletsky attempted club passing for the first time while veterans attempted to pass across a murky fountain in the center of the square and hold the curious spectators at bay. As darkness approached, Alexis Lee awed the crowds with a dramatic display of fire eating and Otto Weizzenegger dazzled everyone with his spark-shooting fire diabolo. Maike Aerden and Rex Boyd left the group scene to do some street performing and met with great success just inches from the demonstrations. After the games, Sophie took Gandini and me to her friend Thea‘s birthday party, where we got to sample (abundantly) the famous Georgian champagne amid many toasts.

Wednesday

The news of the day is that Alex Pape actually arrived at the convention after a three-day adventure in Moscow immigration. Falling in with about 25 Kurdish refugees who left Baghdad on foot to escape Saddam Hussein, Pape became good friends with a family who camped in a corridor for seven months before a Swedish family offered to take them in. “I‘m kind of glad to have made it here, but it was so sad saying good-bye,” said the exhausted devil-stick wizard. This brought to mind the special treatment we got as Western visitors. People work hard to keep life going despite the shortages, or lack of commonplace products (clothing, razors, shampoo, etc.). It is not uncommon to find a large store with only one item lining the shelves, such as salty mineral water. Bread can be found easily enough if you know where and when to shop for it. Fruit and vegetables come from farmer‘s trucks that pull in on Saturdays. People line up with enough luggage for several weeks and begin loading up on eggplants, tomatoes, grapes and pears. With perseverance, things like coffee, sugar and chewing gum can be found, but they are considered delicacies.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs tried to explain the complexities underlying the constant demonstrations. Rostavelli Prospect, Tbilisi‘s main street, has been barricaded since Soviet troops fired on a crowd of protesters two years ago, killing 16 teenage girls. There are two groups of demonstrators: those who support Georgia‘s recently elected president and are in favor of independence, and those known as the “oppressors” who want to force the president out of office and re-establish some of the ties with Moscow. The National Guard is split between the two groups, and the Georgian police seemed to be joining in the debates. There are also two groups of hunger strikers, though they do not oppose each other. One requests freedom for political prisoners, while the other favors a return to normalcy.

The atmosphere was strained but reasonably calm during our visit, but five people were killed in violence a few days after we left. Most residents have become so accustomed to the barricade – which resembles the set from Les Miserables – that they drive around it without giving it a second thought. Under these conditions the very existence of the Georgian Circus is impressive, and we were treated to a performance that night. Georgian juggler Odesia opened the show with a technical juggling act including a five-ball start, seven rings and a three-club kick-up. There was also roller skating, chair balancing, an equestrian act and a very dramatic contortionist. The grand finale, to the music of 2001 Space Odyssey, featured the flying act, which we saw on the first day, this time wearing luminescent space suits. The polished cradle act remained poised even when the lights went out unexpectedly. The circus was said to have suffered from recent events, but Ollie Crick insisted that aside from the hiccoughs, the finale was the best. That night Sophie took us to a tea party where we met her real grandmother, her uncle and a cousin who plans to move to New York to practice dentistry. All spoke English and were eager to hear descriptions of the economic situation in America. Terms like “recession” and “inflation” seemed meaningless compared to the shortages they experience daily, and it is difficult to convince Georgians that for many Americans the picture is not as rosy as it seems.

Thursday

Everyone noticed a high turnout of female jugglers in Tbilisi. On the convention floor, Anna Bahler from Switzerland sparkled as she practiced some intricate and graceful three-club variations, while Susi Oddball kept countless passing patterns afloat. Among the Eastern delegation, I found Sasha from Latvia to be most intriguing. She is from Riga but currently attends the Moscow Circus School, where she has spent the last year rehearsing from 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. each day. After that she works at home with a mirror for another hour, developing the mime skills that she wants to incorporate into her act. The Georgian convention was a sort of holiday for her. While the other Russians practiced vigorously during their allotted times, she hung around the outside of the ring and lackadaisically tossed 6 yellow balls or played with three clubs. Later she confessed her frustration with the daily practice routine, saying that it limited her creative development and natural practice rhythm. Sasha speaks quite a bit of English, but conversations tended to deteriorate into spontaneous pantomime routines.

She enjoyed being the class clown in Moscow, but took her work very seriously. “I like to meet people‘s eyes and make them smile – that is most important,” she said. Her wish: to come to America, of course. That afternoon Karen Quest led 25 of us on a “girls only” excursion to the Turkish baths. Before entering the colorful building, the group juggled outside around the brick domes in an attempt to sell tickets for the final show. Sandy Johnson made many friends with her clowning and balloon animals, and the indefatigable Mikhail Staroseletsky joined in the juggling. Once inside, many were confused by the underground corridors and ended up with no more than a hot shower, but a few found their way to the marble baths. That night the first of three public shows took place in the circus building, with McLeod in traditional Georgian costume serving as ringmaster. For the visiting jugglers, it was a challenge to adapt acts to the circus ring. The band, whose jazzy tunes could be heard throughout the week, helped many.

Jeffrey Daymont used the opportunity to add more movement to his impossible cigar box tricks. Fellow Kansan Rex Boyd grooved his way through a funky fire-swinging routine and engaged the audience with Georgian vocabulary. Frank Olivier relied on his entertaining personality and performed some of his trademark pieces. Twelve-year-old Jessica Sheldrick, who came from Yorkshire with her father, braved the carpeted arena in a classy unicycle duet. Cliff, Mary, and little Mary Spenger provided true family entertainment, culminating in a 3-person high shoulder stand with 3-year-old Mary on top. In one of the more creative acts, the multi-talented Henry Camus played original piano music while Sean Gandini danced through an ethereal three-ball piece. Camus then followed with his own style of inventive club juggling. Lee Hayes took a break from his convention duties to perform with Fritz Brehm and his giant umbrellas. The Russian jugglers performed fast-paced routines that exhibited their incredible skills. Oleg Tchapum dressed as a matador and fought the battle against gravity with large numbers of clubs and rings (he did 5-club flats in practice). Albert Arslanov from Siberia did an unusual routine in which he caught one pole on top of another in increasingly far-fetched ways. His stage presence and infectious smile were so energetic that the audience enjoyed the attempts at nailing new moves. He also used a dagger as a mouth stick, catching objects on the edge of the blade, and made many friends throughout the convention.

Mikhail Staroseletsky‘s practicing paid off. He was virtually flawless, his look of intense concentration never wavering. At one point he kept aloft two large balls, two rings, and a tennis racket, and finished by running across the ring while doing five club backcrosses. The good-natured sextet Ashvitz, composed of three men and three women, seemed to enjoy their work as they began with four clubs each and then filled the ring with precise passing variations. Their choreography was simple but very effective. It ended with the leader Sergei attempting to catch all the clubs in a net – Frank Olivier took a try and was bombarded as the pace speeded up. The show came to an exciting close with Sergei Zobolotini, who performed innovative hat and cane manipulations with a snazzy style. By hitting the rim of the hat with the canes he created a floating

effect similar to that introduced by old vaudevillian Mel Ody. With one cane in each hand, he then juggled up to four hats by catching them on the ends. Sophie‘s extended family cheered us on, and after the show her cousin drove us up a nearby mountain to experience a magical force which, legend says, causes empty cars to roll up a slight incline. It worked!

Friday

I went on the group excursion to a Byzantine church in the mountains. Our chaperons were eager to bring us back right away, but when chants of “Corn bread and bean soup!” threatened to lift the roof of the bus, they let us stop at an outdoor restaurant for the best meal of the week. The show was similar to Thursday‘s with several notable additions. Maike Aerden from Holland captivated the audience with her radiant presentation of silky smooth diabolo variations. She moved gracefully around the entire ring and finished by jumping over the string six times. Tim Furst of The Flying Karamazov Brothers (every trip should have one) joined in a torch-swinging quartet and Canadian Raymond Bolduc presented an original three-ball routine. Karen Quest used whip cracking to split some hard-to-find Georgian spaghetti. Markus Markoni won the audience‘s hearts with his whimsical clown character and gave his young volunteer a memory to cherish.

Saturday

The gigantic Sportspalace represented a new challenge for us from the circus building. One of the visually effective moments was the opening, in which all the jugglers entered in practiced formations carrying their country‘s flags. Jugglers applied their quick wits to overcome a stage that resembled an obstacle course, a quartet that became a trio when it was discovered that one of the members had left on an earlier plane, and an accidental fire on the gym floor. The audience appreciated the skills and risks involved in taking circus to the stage.