From: zetie@vax.oxford.ac.uk (The Edible Dormouse)
Newsgroups: rec.juggling
Subject: Horsham one day convention review (long)
Date: 11 Oct 92 14:45:23 GMT
Organization: Oxford University, Dept of Antiquated Physics


		Horsham One Day Juggling Convention

                  Horsham, England, 10/10/92

Someone commented recently that there seems to be a convention in the UK about
every weekend, and this was this week's. I missed Corby the week before and
that was apparnetly great (care to post a review Mark?). This is a personalised
account of yesterday's event.

The day started for me at about 9am, when I left Oxford on my Guzzi to hack
down 60 miles of boring motorway and 25 miles of quite-fun scratchy A road to
the venue. It was clear that this was mainly a local event as the starting time
was 9am (!) and the hall not very large. Still, a few big names would be there
and it was an excuse to get out and juggle.

I arrived at about 10.30am and there were about 50 people present at that
stage. The facilities were just an ordinary sports centre hall with a stage set
up at one end and a curtained off area for workshops. Unfortunately the
workshops seemed to be badly organised and either never happened or (in the
case of the contact juggling and the unicyling) oversubscribed. I got underway
with some 3,4,5 ball warm up (amd warm-up was the word as it was a chilly
morning and the bike guarantees air-conditioning...) and a solid practise opf
tricks I haven't used for ages and really needed polishing. My problem is that
these days I juggle properly about once a week, sometimes once every other
week, and I have to run hard in those times just to stand still. 

I'd just moved onto a club warm-up when Mark Neale arrived and suggested we do
some passing. By the time we'd built up to 7 clubs the place was filling up
with maybe 100 people present. By means of relaxation we went over to watch
Dave Dyer passing with Haggis McCleod. Amazing but kind of sickening. When they
moved up to eight clubs and Haggis was clamly explaining to Dave that all his
throws were underspun by a half you realised that nevertheless he was catching
and correcting them without breaking sweat. But then he had been pracitsing
those 5 club back-crosses earlier...

Of more interest was the clubs they were using - Radical Fish from Beard (soon
to be available in the UK). They are long, thin and have a very short broad bit
half way along the slightly broadened head. A bit like a sprae tyre round a
lenght of dowel. They come in two weights - 210gm (light) and 185 gm
(extra-light)> It seems they are designed for numbers juggling. I had a play -
they take a bit of getting used to but are eminently catchable. Mark and I
tried passing 7 of them and the bad throws were just about cancelled by the
easiness of catch. Could be the new thing for numbers people. Going back to my
spotlights afterwards felt like juggling solid nine-pins...

A quick break for lunch (good on-site veggy food) and a look round the shop
stalls. And more new stuff - special balls from Beard. Perfect size to weight
for numbers they claim, dead drop (don't roll away or bounce away) yuet bounce
elastically off each other in flight. Grippable surface, quite small, and an
enormous variety of colours. No prices as yet on these either. Again they might
appeal to the specialist but I shall stick to my bean bags and stage balls as I
couldn't see these were that much of an improvement.

Lunch lead into the procession which was cancelled just as it started owing to
a spate of traditional british weather. Back to the gym for more juggling and
eventually the games were started up in the hall. All the traditional stuff - 5
ball endurance (Haggis, but pushed hard by John Blanchard who only fell when
they started on tricks), long distance passing (Dave Dyer/Matt Brammall in the
sudden death about even with Simon and Howie from Oddballs), club balancing
(Guy Heathcote looking smug and relaxed with his arms folded and the club never
wavered despite various manoeuvres being required), Gladiators or Comabt as it
is called in the US (Dave Dyer), and various unicylce things I didn't follow
(reporter bias I know but what the heck). I was pleased at getting thorugh to
the club passing final with Mark as we had never tried it before, and into the
last 4 of the gladiators, a game I am not usually much good at. One thing was
apparent at the time - there were three distinct skill levels in the room (top
professionals such as Haggis, semi-pros such as the Firenoise people who
appeared in all the finals and won many of the prizes, and the masses ranging
from the total beginners to people like myself and others who perfrom
occasionallyy but just don't quite have the edge).

I kind of wound down through the rest of the afternoon. Exercise, fluorescent
lights and a cold were getting to me to produce an annoying little headache. I
sta down with the latest Kaskade and mellowed out until the public show. Also
things got very crowded as they partitioned off half the hall to lay out
chairs. They claim there were 250 people there now in half a sports hall. I
reckon more like 150, but still not a bad turnout.

The show started 20mins late and I should point out  afew things straight off
before talking about the individual acts. The lighting was lousy but it was a
sports hall not a theatre. The music was far to loud, the show was too long but
the compering was good - two guys who organised the event, got on with it and
didn't try to do anyhting clever.

First up was a local lad who doesn't perform much who did a fairly
straightforward but pretty routine with glow-in-the-dark balls and clubs. Then
club meeting did their passing while seated and holding a meeting routine.
Unfortunatel ythe acoustics were lousy so the bad jokes mostly died quietly.
Good skills and slick. Club meeting people came back later in various guises -
Haggis doing a 5 ball routine involving pick ups and throw-ins ending in the
hat gather, Haggis doing a hat routine with 1 and 3 hats, fireclub swing (the
dragon) in beautiful timing,and the Norfolk MOuntian rescue A team as well as
together in their other routines. Captain Bob's circus also provided a number
fo skethces, most of them involving fire and climaxing in a 14 club double
drop-back (of death) which was turned back on itself. Also some nice starts to
routines there...

Andrian Kirk (runner-up busker of the year) did his straight-jacket escape.
Very funny and slick, good crowd control and precisely the same as when I saw
it a year ago! He came back with a juggling three razor sharp machetes on the
suicycle of death which was a gain very slcik and funny.

Alex Laredo,  a rope twirler, whip artist and quck draw, was professional but
on for too long. Treated us more like a holiday camp than a group of jugglers.

Guy Heathcote did his incredible diabolo stuff. His one diabolo work is
beautiful - very controllled, chanigng pace and size of patterns, total
mastery. His two diabolo work is also stunning - a whoel routine in two
diabolos. And he's still working on gettign three going solidly...

A very poor magician was the let down at about the time people were staring to
get tired of the day, and of the seats. Things picked up again with Theatre de
Bicylette, a surrealist and amusing piece which remains indescribable. Finally
the show ended with UltraVision. They stunned the British Juggling Convention
at COventry and have appeared several times since. The show is entirely done in
blacklight (UV) with glowing props,and uses some black costumes to hide the
perfomers and some decorated ones. Blacklight effects are pretty but demanding
- all the lines whether in swinging or juggling have to be perfect. For the
most part they were. Judy Goulson led a swinging piece with coloured glowing
clubs which left beautiful fan shaped trailing patterns on the retina.
Technically difficult and perfectly executed. JOhn Blanchard did a three-ball
routine involving many tricks and effects set to his own music (good timing)
and also suing contact juggling techiniques to rpoduce interesting arrangements
of the objects. nfortunately marred by drops. Definitely momenbts when I
thought he had three hands. Bob Peckham did his glowing cigar boxes - very
effetcive shtick this one, and Silas Mosbacher filled in between the pieces
with fast diabolo work. Probably the star event of the show was the rings
rouitne by John though. Wroking up from one to five rings he juggled, spun,
colour changed, rocked, danced and generally amazed everyone with stunning
patterns, again to his own music. The colour changing mill's mess facing th
audience with the rings flat to us was great, the four rings spinnign on his
fingers going in and out of phase was like a trip, and I don't mean a day-trip
to the seaside...

All in al a  good but tiring day. Facilities cramped, show too long (aren't
they always?) and not many really good people to wacth and admire in the hall,
but a good solid day's fun and practise.

Ken

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