Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival 2004

Atlanta , GA -- February 6-8

The 26th annual Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival drew 171 jugglers, some from as far away as Brazil , Canada and Seattle .  Horizons School graciously hosted the festival when a last-minute construction delay forced us out of Grady High School .  Quick action by several long-time members saved the day, although the juggling space was notably cramped this year. The t-shirt this year was designed by Joyce Howard; its theme of "Peace, Love, Juggling" was inspired by a rec.juggling article which claimed that the Groundhog Day Jugglers Festival is where all the old hippies went after the 60's.

The fun started Friday afternoon with the usual Groundhog chores of setting up vendors, moving signs and tables, and other tasks needed to put on a big festival.  At 5 pm jugglers started trickling in and soon the gym floor was bopping along with the usual collection of spinning, tossing and teetering props plus catching and dropping hands.  The vendors and most spectators took advantage of the upper floor which offered a fine view of the proceedings and a respite from the intensity of the small floor.  The gym closed a little after 10 pm Friday night as Dave Altman chased stragglers out by cracking an 8-foot bullwhip in the space.

Saturday morning featured a small but intense unicycle polo game in the back quarter of the gym.  Lots of memorable club passing took place as well.  The left-right patterns pioneered by Martin Frost are making their way through much of the Groundhog passing groups.  Many people worked on left-right variants of familiar patterns including 3-count stars, various permutations of left-right feeds, and 3-count rotating feeds.  Individual pairs also worked odd counts, such as the "four-three count", which works out to rightpass-self-rightpass, self-self, leftpass-self-leftpass.  Rick Purtee helped teach a number of people these new and interesting variants.

A big and tightly-packed crowd witnessed the 2 pm competitions, which started with the legendary Seed and Feed Marching Abominable Band and featured 14 competitors.  The acts were quite disparate, including serious technical juggling from John Nations and Kerry Silson, a renaissance festival piece from "The King's Errand" by Alex Burke, Jacob Sherry and Jeff Wood, and an innovative but unfinished act by Tomoko Tokushige involving juggling and a loop of tape stretched between two chairs.  The three youngest competitors (Carlos Nieves, Robby Kuhn, and James Faulkner) won free IJA memberships courtesy of IJA life member Wallace Howard.

Phil trophies were awarded as follows:  Cameron Ritter was Most Stupendous for a difficult club-juggling act whose highlights included a 2-high pirouette, lying down and getting up in a chin balance, and a brief run of 5 clubs.  Rico Guzman won Most Splendid for a well-choreographed diabolo act featuring some difficult combination tricks and a whip-catch.  Perpetual Motion (Chuck Hawley and Anthony Shave) took Most Spectacular for a unicycle-and-club-juggling act which featured a club passing on a bunny-hopped unicycle, four- and five-club run-arounds, and a leap-frog takeaway to 4 clubs over a unicycling juggler with a chin-balanced club.

The yo-yo competition took place in a filled Horizons School Theater, just a few steps away from the gym.   Anthony Greer became the new Georgia state yo-yo champion.  Several competitors were nervous but excited at getting to work on a real stage.   Georgia yo-yoists made a strong showing in this year's event, placing in every contest and winning four of the six events.

Saturday continued with more juggling, quantities of maté, and the occasional break to rest the eyes and band-aid the hands.  Greg Cohen supplied a powerful and modern PA system which included both a CD player and a mini-disc player, so jugglers rocked along to a wide selection of pop standards and obscurities.  A furious but polite game of combat occupied the back quarter of the gym later in the evening.

Timm Settimi hosted the "Midnight Cabaret" at 10 pm Saturday in the Horizons School Theater with the DeLuxe Vaudeville Orchestra providing live music.  The show started with the dance team of Cyrus and Nadine doing a combination of swing dancing and gymnastics.  Mike Gardiner next sang a heart-rending ballad of misperception entitled "It's Not True That I Am Gay".  Mark and Eric, as "Statistically Impossible", did a cute audience-member-in-the-middle club passing act, then rounded out their time with some 3-club steals and run-arounds.  Book Kinneson, the 14-year-old contortionist from the Midwest , crawled through a tennis racket and demonstrated some uncanny 3-ball moves, including juggling while handcuffed.

The Hamiltons showed some innovative cigar-box-passing, including some novel moves with one partner standing behind the other while both manipulated a single box.  Matt Ritter showed several unique top-spinning tricks.  This year Andy Ford won the Mouse award for his many years of service to the Atlanta Jugglers.  The memorable quote from his extempore acceptance speech was "I've been to a lot of juggling festivals, and this one is really the best I think."

Next Lucas, our Brazilian guest, showed some pretty contact juggling moves and ended his act with a brief 5-ball cascade.  Matt Long did a well-organized act which included a running free-mount to a six-foot unicycle. Afterward he told the audience that this act was his audition piece for L'ecole de Cirque, where he was due for a performance in 9 days. Meredith Gordon and Timm Settimi closed the show with a soulful duet on accordion and ukelele called "You Gotta Have Skin".

Sunday started at 11 am with more sessions in the gym, fueled by breakfasts provided by Les and Martha of Horizons School.  Many folks juggled straight through 'til 5, trying to get those last few throws in and learn those last many tricks before heading back to the real world.  By 5 pm the vendors had packed up and we took down the festival in the traditional style.  Thirty-four AJA members and refugees from the festival descended on Meskerem Ethiopian restaurant for a fine feast accompanied by rivers of beer.  The last thing I remember before I woke up was playing with whips in the parking lot of the restaurant, wondering if we were going to get away before someone called the cops complaining of gunfire.

-- Charles Shapiro

Photos by Josiah Kailing and Joyce Howard