As a juggling historian, I’m often asked what I believe the next historic juggling achievement will be. For the last few years, I’ve stated that I thought it would be a qualifying run of 7 club backcrosses. In 2006, Wes Peden became the first juggler to qualify 6 club backcrosses. At least as early as 2012, Anthony Gatto was able …
Mariora – Juggling Star of the 1930s and 1940s
By David Cain Mariora Matei was born on May 3rd, 1917 in Altona, Hamburg, Germany to parents who hailed from Romania. Her father, Florian Matei, was an acrobat and gymnast. Her older brother Jean was born in 1909 and was performing professionally by his late teens under the name Jean Florian. Mariora made her stage debut on June 1, 1934 …
W. C. Fields As A Juggler: Articles From 1904, 1908, 1917, and 1923
By David Cain Recently, I shared an article that featured films and photos of the famed comedian and movie star W. C. Fields that showed his skills as a juggler, which is the role in which he first found fame in show business. You can click here to read that article. In researching that article, I came across many old …
The First Public Video of Albert Lucas’ Historic 13-Ring Flash
Juggling is a visual art form, so it’s no surprise that juggling and film are deeply intertwined. Historians dream of uncovering footage of legendary jugglers like Cinquevalli, Kara, and Salerno. Today, with cameras readily available on phones, modern juggling feats are almost always recorded and shared on social media. In fact, within the current juggling community, there’s a shared understanding …
The Bottle, Poles, And Table Balance Trick
There are certain tricks that pop up over and over again when doing juggling history research. One of these is what I call the Bottle, Poles, and Table Balance. This trick is characterized by the juggler balancing a bottle on his or her chin or forehead, bottle neck side down. Converging into the open bottom of the bottle are three …
The Cigar Box Knock Away Trick
I’ve written in great detail in the past about the origins of cigar box juggling. The genre started with wooden block tricks in Japan and spread to the rest of the world, eventually being done with cigar boxes or wooden boxes. One of these original tricks is not well-known, but very entertaining. I refer to it as the cigar box …
Kitty Traney – Juggler and Animal Trainer
Kitty Traney is most definitely an obscure name in juggling history, despite being a talented and successful performer. Not much is known about her other than what can be gleaned from newspaper clippings. Despite sometimes being billed as English or French, she was actually a German whose real name was Katrina Tolcsmitt-Kilhauer. She was originally a ballet dancer, and then …
Youna: New Information and Photos
Nine years ago, I discovered a juggler about whom I’d never heard. His name was Youna. The following is a review of what I learned then with additional information, newspaper clippings, and photos that I have found recently. The story of the juggler Youna is an amazing and mysterious one. Youna was born in Japan to Episcopal missionary parents from …
The Hands-On Corner of The Museum of Juggling History
When I give tours of the Museum of Juggling History to other jugglers, they invariably want to handle many of the props on display. In all but a few situations, this is possible. Exceptions do exist, such as a very fragile Anthony Gatto childhood club and a mercury-filled self-lighting candle invented and used by Salerno, but they are few and …