Story of the festival by Charles
Shapiro:
About 178 registered jugglers attended the 2006 Groundhog Day Jugglers
Festival, held Feb 3, 4 and 5 at Cross Keys High School in beautiful
Atlanta, Georgia. The festival started well when we got the gym for Friday
night, often difficult when the basketball schedule conflicts. The gym
was almost uncrowded the first evening, with room to unicycle and
experiment with other vehicles.
The second day cranked up fast, with PA systems blasting music, the
Georgia Yo-Yo contest up on the stage, and lots of pairs, quads, and
larger groups intently passing clubs. One amusing passing pattern was
Feast-Famine, a multi-person circle feed starting clockwise (the 'feast'),
and then going counter-clockwise (the 'famine') when it got back to the
self throw.
The Georgia State Yo-Yo championships featured five events,
with players from around the Southeast participating. Georgia winners
included Travis Bish (sport ladder, age 30-44) and Kentaro Kimura (1A
Freestyle, Open Freestyle), Plans for the future include more judges to
help the competition go quicker and more categories. CNN showed up to
cover the yo-yo contest but spent some time on the juggling floor as well.
The Kelly's Seed and
Feed Marching Abominable Band kicked off the 2 pm contest, witnessed
by a packed house of at least 800 people. Their theme this year was 'Any
Holiday You Like', with snowmen, Uncle Sams, big hats, and wild pants of
every description. Twelve competitors braved the completely cherry judges
to present their very best stuff.
Casey Boehmer walked away with "Most
Awe-Inspiring" trophy for his stylish and big club/ball routine, featuring
up to 4 clubs in one hand and more tricks than most jugglers think
possible on one arm. Matt Hall took the "Mind Bending" prize for diabolo
work which looks simple but is in fact scary hard. Kellin Quinn got the "Stupiflying"
prize for a well-choreographed and costumed routine involving cooking
implements. Other highlights of the show included
David
Dimuzio's gorgeous
club work, and some truly astounding blind juggling and head-rolls from
Tony Duncan.
More juggling followed the 2 pm show. One of the hits of the festival was
the Trikke,
a strange cross between a tricycle and a pair of skates. Many people you'd
never expect on a scooter tried it out on the gym floor, including at
least one 70+-year-old woman. The New Orleans jugglers brought their goals
up for a spirited -- if cold -- game of Unicycle Hockey in the parking lot
in back of the gym. There was only one truly spectacular fall, a
chest-dive onto the asphalt which resulted in a minor chin abrasion.
Several members of the Atlanta Unicycle Club were at at the festival, but
alas I saw no Cokers there this year.
The 11 pm Cabaret was held at
EyeDrum Gallery in
South Atlanta due to a scheduling conflict with the usual Little 5 Points
location. The Fire Juggling out front was a bit of a bust, although a
couple of folks did brave the cold with torches and fire poi when the
audience was mostly inside.
Matt Hall MC'd the show, starting it off with
a tennis ball-can routine. The Hamiltons were first, with a precisely
choreographed and elegantly costumed ball routine. Next up was Nadine Beeny, who did a fine strip-tease+rola-bola+ball
juggling act. Dan Howard lost the classical rock-paper-scissors and
look-over-there contest with Matt. Next was Anthony and Michelle Mills in
a club passing routine which ended with Anthony leaping into Michelle's
arms, and a spectacular balloon-and-leaf-blower balance by
Steve Mills.
Kate Flagherty from Orlando, Florida did some fine club juggling followed
by a sweet elbow lever on top of a battered suitcase. Michael Garner
impersonated Dean Martin for a fine rendition of a song about cooking,
ending by literally tossing his cookies into the audience. Alex Burke told
an alliterative tale of working at Hershey Park, followed by
world-champion top spinner Matt Ritter.
David Dimuzio broke from his usual
juggling routine to sit on a stool, play guitar, and sing, The cabaret
closed with a solid comedy-juggling set by John Nations featuring witty
banter and a 5-tennis-racket cascade.
The next day at the gym started at 10:00 sharp and ran quickly by in a
blur of flying clubs, $1.00 hot dogs from the school concession stand, and
miscellaneous odd pastimes. Nadine ran around the gym showing off her
electric 'reflex tester' to shouts of pain and glee. The trikke got an
extended workout, and several lucky festival-goers got to experiment with
the 'flybar', an extremely high-tech (and somewhat dangerous) pogo stick
for adults. At 5 pm the gym closed with the traditional cracking of whips
to drive the last stragglers out, and a small cadre of exhausted jugglers
adjourned to Panahar Restaurant for the feasting, the telling of lies, and
the drinking of beer and wine. |
