![[Michael Menes photo]](Pics/notes.jpg)
Mike Menes reports "astounding results" with an experimental workshop in "Juggling and the Theory of Relativity" that he recently conducted. His successful approach to helping students learn specific skills will be compiled in a book/manual that should be ready for purchase by May of 1987.
Bruce Pfeffer and Doug Ullman took their Circus of the Kids to Club Med in the Bahamas to teach juggling and other skills during December and January.
David Lee reports success at working with large numbers these days. Lee says he can do 10 rings for two passes and is working on eight clubs. Even more impressive, Lee says his brother, Albert Lucas, is working on nine clubs! Lucas has performed in Japan for the past six months.
Karl-Heinz Ziethen has just published a set of 10 historical juggling post cards. Most are color reproductions of posters for acts from the past such as Enrico Rastelli, the 7 Perezoffs, W.C. Fields and King Repp. Ziethen has also been actively promoting the 90th anniversary of Rastelli's birth, including television appearances and production of an exhibition at the Berlin juggling store "Die Jonglerie." Ziethen is also involved in another book project -- a work covering the life of about 50 of the world's top jugglers that will be published by an East German company later this year.
Francis Brunn began working again at the Lido in Paris Jan. 7, following time off to recuperate from another operation. Sister Lotte reported that Francis feels great and is glad to be occupying the stage again.
Allan Howard appeared in three shows with Doug Henning in Cleveland, Ohio, and two in New York City.
Edward Jackman appeared recently on the late-night David Brenner show, highlighting his act with his trademark bicycle balance and club juggle.
Fresh out of Ringling Brothers Clown College, Joel Heidtman recently juggled in the made-for-TV movie, "Barnum." Three other jugglers, Gene Jones, John Mark St. Jules and 12-year-old Shane Hanson, backed up Burt Lancaster's highly-acclaimed portrayal of the circus legend's life.
Mark Nizer received an extension of his contract at the Chateau Champlain hotel in Montreal until April. He has been seen on several French-language television shows, and juggled on a cruise from Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in January.
Mark Bakalor, age 9, is working at least two jobs a weekend in the San Francisco area. He appears regularly at both Pier 39 and Ghirardelli Square doing a 12-minute act with balls, rings, clubs and torches. Little brother Scotty, age 7, occasionally puts in a cameo appearance.
Bounce & Mlle. Ooo-La-La have returned from eight months on the road to the warmth of their Key West home for the winter. They'll remain there until another tour of America's colleges and nightclubs begins in April. The canine part of their act, Sparkplug, has been getting more stage time lately. He's up to almost ten minutes in the show, including a bit where he barks in seven different languages!
"The Call of the Game," a book by Steve McKee to be published early this year, contains a nine-page chapter about his visit to the IJA SUNY-Purchase convention in 1983. He also chronicled his visit to the IJA convention in an article for "American Way" magazine in 1984. "Call of the Game" highlights McKee's experience of a year's travel to famous sporting events around the world.
Steve and Carol Mills announce the birth of a new daughter, Michelle, on Oct. 23, 1986, on the road in Medford, Ore.
Kris Kremo continues to impress crowds at the "Lido de Paris" show at the Stardust Hotel in his eighth year as a Las Vegas entertainer. He performs a 14-minute routine that mixes humor and technical brilliance with balls, hats and boxes. He was disappointed that some of his new material wasn't getting much of an audience reaction, Kremo said, so he began emphasizing the tricks with humor. In one such demonstration, he kicks a hat with his foot as if to land it on his head. But it travels over his head to be caught with a foot on the other side. An extremely difficult move, Kremo said, but the audience reaction was nil. To get their attention now, he turns toward the audience and pulls a medal from his coat pocket when he makes the trick! The medal goes back in the pocket later on an intentional drop. Besides juggling, Kremo spends his time on a ranch outside the city grooming horses that have won several shows for him.
Bob Whitcomb challenged people at a Cincinnati mini-convention in early December to juggle three 10-pound bowling balls. Bob won the contest with 100 throws.
The Castors, three brothers comprising a French Risley act, performed at the Hilton Hotel in Seoul, Korea, from November through February. Elder brother Toly also held down a solo juggling spot in the show.
Andrew Allen has been living in Amsterdam, but planned to go to China in February to study in an artistic school for six months.
Did you know that Sergei Ignatov's younger brother is a juggler also? The younger Ignatov performs with the Four Afanasjews. In their club passing act, two people pass ten clubs and the young Ignatov juggles six alone.
Billed as "El Dentista Malabrista," Dr. Mark McMahon of San Francisco was a guest on the Latino variety program "Domingos Alegres" in October. Performing for the live audience of more than 5,000 people, McMahon did his act in Spanish. "I learned to speak Spanish in school," he said, "but had to teach myself to juggle in Spanish."
The American Dream Juggling Team, Scott Meltzer and John Park, is appearing Monday through Wednesday nights through mid-March in the "Splash" show at the Rivera Hotel in Las Vegas. Their 14 minute act includes comic renditions of eight club passing and a takeoff on chain saw juggling that employs electric hedge clippers, a dustbuster and a mixmaster. They begin a six month engagement at the Atlantis Hotel in Atlantic City April 3.
Frank Olivier has previewed a new one man show, "Not In Kansas," in San Francisco. Olivier performs many juggling routines as he plays a character trying to get away from vaudeville and become a modern "artiste." Price Burlingame also helps out with his voice only in the part of the off-stage manager.
While working on a cruise ship in the Carribean recently, Robert York met Wally and Connie Eastwood. York and Eastwood practiced together, then were faced with performing beneath a 7-foot ceiling. Despite the lack of adequate space, Eastwood did five clubs, including a behind the back throw, and York performed six rings. York also reports visiting Ro Fields, who was packing a new motor home with juggling gear for a trip to the Key West street performers festival in January. Fields unique signature trick is juggling a flaming bowling ball!
Roy and Margaret Ann Melanson of Highland, Calif., two of the IJA's most recent Life Members, report recent success in teaching incarcerated young people to juggle. They let students witness their progress by videotaping sessions, and gave the best jugglers (as voted by their peers) IJA memberships.