By David Cain One of my passions as a juggling historian is to bring to light juggling acts almost completely forgotten by history. Today, we’ll examine two such acts. I know nearly nothing about the background of these acts, but we do know about what they performed. The Goldeno Trio Around 1900, a group called the Goldeno Trio performed carpet …
Forgotten Juggling Props – Double-Ended Knives and Torches
By David Cain The juggling of knives and torches is common, practically expected by audiences. Almost always, those props have a handle end and a “danger end”. This makes them fairly easy to juggle, because they behave like juggling clubs. The only toss juggling props that we see today that are double “danger-ended” are flaming batons used by baton twirlers. …
Kach Maht – The Mysterious Photographed Juggler
By David Cain In my years as a juggling researcher and historian, there has been one juggler whose numerous photos I’ve often come across, but have never learned any information about. His name is Kach Maht. I’ve finally learned a little bit about his life and career, and I hope that this article will lead to more information. The juggler …
Three Facts About Kara, the Gentleman Juggler
By Esteban Vélez. Kara is one of the three great jugglers of the early 20th century, along with Salerno and Paul Cinquevalli. His real name was Michael Steiner. He was born on January 31, 1867, in Nuremberg, Germany. As a child, he saw a circus juggler who inspired him to teach himself juggling, practicing with household objects. At 16, he …
Wolfgang Bartschelly: New Information, Photos, and Videos
By David Cain Wolfgang Bartschelly was a juggling star for forty years. He was born on June 24th, 1932 in Leipzig, Germany. He originally trained as a mechanic and also worked in a chemist’s laboratory. He performed in the Gitta Elsy juggling troupe for two years. Then in 1955, he put together a plate spinning act which used up to …
Gus Hill and Charles Hoey: Rivals Turned Partners
By David Cain Gus Hill is arguably the most famous club swinging performer of all time. Before Indian clubs were toss juggled, they were used for both physical training and eventually as a form of entertainment. Hill became a well-known star of Vaudeville stages in the late 1800s. Another one of the top club swingers at the same time was …
Kara: How the Juggler Trains
By: Esteban Vélez. Kara is one of the three great jugglers of the early 20th century, along with Salerno and Paul Cinquevalli. He was born on January 31, 1867, in Nuremberg, Germany. As a child, he saw a circus juggler who inspired him to learn to juggle, practicing with household objects. At 16, while juggling at his parents’ fish fry …
Using Ukuleles and Banjoleles As Juggling Props
By David Cain Besides juggling and writing about juggling history, playing the ukulele is one of my favorite things to do. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that I would combine the two skills together. After all, the ukulele is almost exactly the size of a juggling club. Below you can see me do three tricks with a ukulele, …
Salerno – Old Articles and Reviews: Part 2
By David Cain A good deal has been written about the famed Gentleman Juggler Salerno. You can click here and here to read some of my previous articles about him. Today, we’ll examine some articles and reviews of him from the early 1900s. First, we have an article from the Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette from 1906. It refers to him as …