Upcoming Portland Juggling Festival is Free for Reedies
By Stuart Celarier ‘83
The 33rd Portland Juggling Festival brings fun and frenetic frivolity to the Reed campus on the weekend of September 26 to 28 in the Sports Center. The Festival is free for Reed students, faculty, and staff (please bring your ID.) The juggling festival features 40 hands-on workshops—from beginner to advanced—plus prop vendors; open juggling; games; fabulous Club Renegade (see below); and special guests from across the globe, around the nation, and local favorites.
A Big Show!
Don’t miss the Portland Juggling and Vaudeville Extravaganza, the festival’s big show featuring our fantastic special guests and stunning local performers. There is no other show like it in Portland! The show is on Saturday, September 27, at 7:00pm in Kaul Auditorium. The Extravaganza show is the one part of the festival with a charge for Reedies, however tickets are deeply discounted at $20 for Reed students, faculty, and staff—Reed tickets are available at the door. The show is general admission and does sell out some years, so arrive early.
And a Secret Show!
Whether you’re a juggler or not, you will get a kick out of Club Renegade on Friday night at 10 PM in Vollum Lecture Hall. Club Renegade is a staple of juggling festivals around the world, it’s kind of like the Midnight Theater of juggling—entertaining and crazy tricks, gags, cheap theatrics, and novelties that aren’t ready for the main stage and perhaps may never be. Generally hilarious, occasionally risqué, often quirky, most definitely live, and never a dull moment. Oh, yeah, and it’s free. Bring a friend!
Okay, so what is a Portland Juggling Festival, anyway? It is a celebration of all forms of juggling, circus arts, and flow arts with an emphasis on having fun and learning from others. It is a spectacle, a chance to see people with all kinds of mad juggling skills with all kinds of props performing. It is an incredible opportunity to meet and learn from professionals and enthusiasts from up and down the West Coast, across the continent, and beyond. It’s also a chance to buy props (you can actually pick them up and try them out!), ephemera, and supplies for all your fun, crazy, and weird activities. It’s chockablock full of workshops of people sharing their skills with you.
The Portland Juggling Festival grew out of the Reed PE juggling class (which, by the way, is currently enjoying its 46th year as a PE class) and the juggling community that has formed along with the class over the years. I teach the AFOP PE juggling class at Reed and I co-founded the festival in 1992. Right from the start, the festival developed a terrific reputation in the juggling world for being a welcoming and well-run event, and that reputation has allowed us to attract and showcase top-notch talent to Reedies and local audiences. PJF has become one of the most successful and enduring regional juggling festivals in North America, with attendance often topping 300, and it has been featured in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
Workshops are a huge part of the festival. This year, there are 40 workshops by excellent teachers covering an array of props, skills, and techniques. You can come get started on something new or build on what you know. All workshops are included with festival admission. The workshop schedule will be available online soon and will also be at the festival registration desk. There’s no sign up necessary, just show up and have fun! Keep an eye on the portlandjugglers.org website for the finalized workshop schedule.
Special guests: Jay Gilligan is headlining this year’s Portland Juggling & Vaudeville Extravaganza. Gilligan has performed in every state in the US, in 38 countries, and has performed with outstanding companies such as Cirque du Soleil and the world-renowned Gandini Juggling Project. In 2000, he moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he created the exceptional juggling program at the University of Dance and Circus, which is now part of the Stockholm University of the Arts. Most recently, he has been performing a one-man off-Broadway show in New York titled “Stories About Gravity.” Jay was one of the special guests and performers at the first Portland Juggling Festival back in 1992. We are so excited to have him back!
Other performers include Kassandra LaVictoire who fuses the precision and creativity of European-inspired hoop manipulation with contemporary juggling techniques, Cam Resch (aka The Mighty BearSnake) with mind-bending club juggling, and local favorites Curtis Carlyle, Circus Luminescence, and the ever-popular Rhys Thomas. The great Alexander D’Amazing, who has performed on five continents, will emcee this incredible evening of hilarity and dexterity.
See portlandjugglers.org for complete festival details, a schedule, a full list of special guests and performers, and tickets for your non-Reed community friends. Questions? Contact scelarier@reed.edu.
Festival schedule in a nutshell:
Friday, 9/26
6:00– 9:30pm: Festival workshops and more (Sports Center)
10:00pm: Club Renegade (Vollum Lecture Hall)
Late night juggling (Sports Center)
Saturday, 9/27
10:00am – 5:30pm: Festival workshops and more (Sports Center)
7:00pm: Portland Juggling & Vaudeville Extravaganza show (Kaul Auditorium, separate admission)
Late night juggling (Sports Center)
Sunday, 9/28
10:00 am – 1:00 pm: Festival workshops and more (Sports Center)
1:00pm – Awards: and door prizes
1:30 – 3:00pm: Juggling Games