EJC 2022 in Tres Cantos, Spain

At the airport, there were many Israeli jugglers making a scene. This year around 100 of my compatriots were coming to EJC, many veterans and many for their first time. Many I know, many I don’t. Throughout the week I will hear Hebrew everywhere.

Since I was a day early, I got to see a bit of Madrid and did a fun Segway tour and walked around the city. I stayed in a hotel in Tres Cantos for one night.

Saturday registration wasn’t opening until noon so I went for a run in the morning. On route, I saw jugglers on their way to the site. When I eventually decided to head to the site, it was easy to find jugglers to make the trek with.

Registration was pretty quick and then I set up my tent on the rugby field. And then I was off to the gym.

Spain and Europe were still at the end of a heatwave so it was pretty hot, but it didn’t stop us from doing what we came to do. Every prop and style imaginable was going on. What an amazing sight.

It was good to see many old friends throughout the afternoon, and meet new ones as well. I spoke to the amazing Christofer Silva who did the most recent Tricks of the Month video.

Saturday night’s opening show was a bit of a dud. French artist Sylvain Oulala did a classic street performance starting with 3 “razor sharp” knives and then and 2 diabolos, but with tricks nearly everyone in the audience could do. He had a good energy, and I’m sure the show would be popular for non-jugglers, but not the caliber we had hoped for. His finale (finally) was climbing up two volunteers and pretending it was hard to mount his 8 foot giraffe unicycle and then juggling 3 knives.

I met some IJA peeps at the show: first Jorge Vilchis and his girlfriend Fernanda on the way to the show, then Amy Wieliczka and Christian Kloch after. Back at the gym I did some fun passing with Christian and then worked on solo juggling until the wee hours. Nighttime cooled off so sleeping was fine and even the morning stayed cool for a while.

Day 2 was another hot day, but luckily I found the air conditioned gym. Wow, what a difference. There were many people doing passing in there which made me wonder: are passers smarter than the average juggler (for finding the best juggling space)?

The Gandini show was supposed to be there, but it apparently moved to the main gym, but there was no sign of them in the main gym either.

Later went to the games, but they had moved from their originally published location, too. And even though we arrived slightly before they were supposed to start, they were already in full swing (I think because the parade finished early there).

Regardless, the games were full of great energy. Many of the usual endurance games were won by the usual endurance beasts. 5 balls, 7 balls, 5 clubs, handstand – all went on for ages and the crowd loved it. There were some unusual (but entertaining games) and it all ended with massive rounds of combat.

7 ball endurance:

5 club endurance:

The circus tent they set up for the Mediterranean show was a great venue. A burst of air conditioning greeted you when you walked in and the 1500 seats were much more comfortable than the usual EJC floor sitting for shows.

While waiting for the tent to fill up, the crowd kept itself amused with all sorts of games and antics – waves, pirouettes, prairie dogging, flashlights, barking and jungle noises, stomping and clapping, and other silliness.

The emcee, Frederico Oneill, did a great job in Spanish and English.

The first act was Jesús Fornies and with guitarist Agustin de la Fuente doing a homage to Francis Brunn, both in terms of big ball tricks and flamenco style. The act included ball spinning with curls, head bounces, and body rolls. He did a blind behind the body kick to a foot catch and a kickup to ball on ball spinning. He did 3 large balls with kicks and body rolls. And got 3 balls spinning – one in each hand and one on his forehead. With 4 he did a lot of head bounces which brought him his first standing ovation. He started 5 with a head bounce into a pretty big ball cascade that got him another long ovation.

Next was Cía Non Sin Tri from Azores doing a unicycle and physical body manipulation with 2 men and woman in other worldly style. As the main rider rode the stage, the others would jump on in unexpected ways. He had one land on each foot and they’d go up and down like pistons as he pedaled. The main rider bounced the unicycle in a flip directly into a mount. One of the partners stood on his shoulders (while unicycling) and juggled 5 clubs. Later the female partner did a shoulder to shoulder stand on the rider. They crawled across the stage and formed an alien with their bodies, clubs, and hands. For the finale, the unicyclist rode around and the others jumped on him in more and more surprising ways as he rode around the stage. Another amazing act.

Eva y Cristian were next up performing hoop, acro, and dance. It’s kind of hard to describe their interactions, but there was a lot of each manipulating the other with a hoop – lifting and dragging the other and keeping them from falling. There was lots of different ways of one holding the hoop and the other jumping or diving through.

Sirio Fernández Rubio describes his act as technical, delusional, and full on power. He started with his 3 colorful clubs dong traps and manipulations, but it really got fun hen he took out his special clubs – one had spikes coming out of it, another was full of smoke, one sprayed water, and another was a harmonica. He had a lot of spastic movements but his technical skills were very well received.

 

Nicolás Lucero performed a dance of balance between rings and magic. He did shape manipulations with 4 rings with great effects and surprise moves which earned him a standing ovation.

The great Guillermo León did his wonderful 3 club manipulation and juggling in his truly likeable character. He had a couple unique tricks with his beard such as stretching it out and balancing a club on it. The routine kept a smile on my face for the entre act.

Rosa Schmidt’s act was created in an act of rebellion against her professor. I’m not usually a great fan of aerial, but she did a great job using two ropes with many dramatic poses and sudden drops.

Nicolas Pires performed diabolo as “a relationship between juggler and his prop.” He flung it around in all the big tricks and high energy. I really liked one where he dropped the diabolo in front him and it bounced between his legs and he caught it in a blind whip catch. He also did some spectacular vertax which earned him a standing ovation.

This show was my favorite of the whole convention.

I hadn’t been to a convention workshop for many years, but on Monday morning I decided to try the Gandini dance workshop and go outside my comfort zone a bit. Note: I’m very much not a dancer, nor do even enjoy dancing. But this was fun and I had a smile on my face the entire time. Sean and Kati nicely broke down the dance steps and hand/juggling movements very well. They are really extraordinary teachers. It really requires a lot of practice and concentration to do it all, but we learned quite a few routines in the hour.

I volunteered for a few hours at the info point. It was pretty quiet, but helped with lost and found, giving map directions, and other basic tasks. Mostly, though, I chatted with co-volunteers Patrick and Olivia, which was nice.

Monday night’s main show in the circus tent was Circanario Show La Sagrada Familia. It started with a ghost and an old man rolling clubs around the stage. Eventually more ghosts joined and then all four performers became babbling and laughing old people on a bench and after a quick costume change they were middle-aged professionals in glasses. One of the women did trapeze while the others raised and lowered the bar. After another costume change, they were teens doing acrobatics and cheerleading-style partner throws. One woman did a rope routine which she continued as it developed into the others doing heavy metal dancing and hair swinging with red strobe lights flashing. At the end, they regressed into babies in diapers and ended with one of the men (baby, actually) doing fast and exciting Cyr wheel.

Unfortunately, the show started late and ended late so I didn’t make it to the open stage, which I heard was excellent, rivalling the previous night’s show in quality.

Tuesday morning I joined the Gandinis again for more dance and juggling goodness. Then I was off to the air conditioned hall for some club practice. I did some passing with Phillip and learned WhyNot? and 7 club 3 count.

I got to the evening Open Stage early and was asked to volunteer as an usher, actually to guard the good seats for VIPs and ushers.

Daniel Simu was emcee and he started us off with a big group hug.

Estelle and Carlos came on stage in referee outfits and did 3 ball take-outs and steal and side-by-side siamese juggling while dancing. Then they did similar with 5 – takeouts and switching/stealing the pattern. Then they took off in a fast-paced club passing with many tricks and back-to-back passing. They passed 7 in 1-count and 3-count and then 8 in singles and doubles. They had great energy and they were obviously having a great time.

 

Elise started with club and umbrella manipulations including clever use of the umbrella handle to hook the club or hook on another umbrella. After a quick-change dress she did a nice 3 club routine and then 4 cubs in singles and doubles. With 5 clubs she did multiplex and cascade and then ended with 3 umbrellas with some cool neck stalls.

Salvador found hats in a garbage bag and did many body rolls, placements, and flips on various parts of his body with 1-4 hats. The 4 hat manipulations were quick and crazy. He ended by juggling 4 in a few patterns and 5 with multiplexes and a cascade.

Insomnia New Circo comprised 2 men with 5 clubs. Starting with one each and building up, they had a variety of crazy manipulations and exchanges with tons of movement around the stage and obviously tightly choreographed to always be in the right place for accepting clubs. The only “real juggling” was their 5 club side-by-side routine in numerous patterns.

Nuria Luna Llena came onstage in a purple dress with a purple hoop attached to her hair. There were quite a few humorous manipulations before she extracted it from her hair and did some cool effects with 2 and 3 hoops.

Between acts the emcee did a trick with the the number of hoops matching the number of the act. The best was for act 5 he spun one on each leg,1 on each arm, and one on his hair in a kukoo bun.

Hugo started with a ball on his head and did headrolls, contact, and body rolls to some poetry. He had a cool kickup to cheek catch and then moved up to 5 ball juggling with a ball on his forehead and many 5 ball tricks and patterns without the extra ball. But he really went wild with 3 balls with tons of surprise catches. There were tons of drops, but the audience loved the outrageous tricks and risk he was taking. Truly the kind of juggling jugglers love.

Joe Fischer from Tanzania is currently working in Las Vegas on Water From Mars. His intense 3 club tricks were beautiful moves done to perfection. Great tricks and great pace. With clubs he did numerous siteswaps and patterns including super low triples directly into singles. He ended with 3 clubs doing things too hard to describe with seemingly impossible catches of the clubs at their peaks He got a huge roaring standing ovation

Alexei Levillion is a real artist with diabolo. The visuals were stunning and executed to perfection. His confidence and charisma on stage suited his huge tricks which continually thrilled the audience.. His clearly impossible tricks included somehow bouncing a diabolo on the string simultaneously as he wrapped it around his body. His vertax was outrageous with phenomenally hard and unique tricks got the audience screaming and jumping out of their seats. And he finished off with his signature Galexei tricks of 2 diabolos on one string with one in normal horizontal orientation while the other was in vertical vertax and then executing more craziness. Astounding routine got a huge standing ovation. Truly epic.

Unfortunately, I missed the Wednesday Gandini workshop today because I was roped into volunteering doing badge control for a few hours in the morning. During the other Gandini sessions I attended, the highlight was the love parade that performed as a flash mob for a juggler who proposed to her boyfriend. Sean told me that the “video does not do it justice” but still, it puts a huge smile on my face:

https://www.facebook.com/davide.quagliottogeo/posts/pfbid09CVw775CjJLQN7sBRKsK4W9TxEXR343vmvhjKFEUHejEG3xY3wwdDy1XdVfdae4ol

Open Stage was hosted by Frederico O’Neill from 9’Circos in Portugal (who also hosted the Mediterranean show).

Amy Wieliczka opened the show with her “Walk in the Park” hoop routine. She started with some cool single-hoop manipulations but most of the routine was based on proper juggling (which I, of course, prefer). She did lazies into an arm balance and solid arm rolls over her shoulders. She had all sorts of cool arm stalls and rolls in a variety of patterns. Unique and fun.

 

Pierre and Bento came on with a big build up and one played a slide whistle while the other executed a diabolo string climb – over in 15 seconds.

Quentin and Rosa from Germany did good acro such as 1 foot standing on head and many lifts and carries and throws and balances. The coolest was him holding her high above his head and throwing her directly into a handstand.

Pierre and Bento returned with a clarinet and diabolo. As they notes went high, the diabolo was thrown high, and the notes went down on the descent. Short and sweet.

Next a duo from Chile and Italy started with rolling a ball on a table to working with multiple balls playfully on the table. She did 3 balls including foot catches both standing and lying down. They did a side-by-side shower with 6 balls and 3 each while she was on his back – first facing forward and then facing back. They each did synchronized 5 ball patterns and ended by passing 10 balls.

The next running gag for Pierre and Bento was with a glow club and music box.

Batiste from France did a lot of tricks with 5 and 6 balls and 3 with many blind catches. He also did some mouth catches including having the beanbags thrown from audience members. He ended with 7 balls. Oh, and much of his act was performed blindfolded.

Sonyi from Taiwan did a hat routine starting with 3 with many spins, twirls, body rolls and blind catches. His specialty was throwing hats to foot catches. He did cool showers between hands, head, and feet with 3, 4, and even 5 hats.

BuBasa did a Japanese act in anime-style costume and to French spoke word poetry. Lots of diabolo manipulations with string swings and mysterious smoke.

Valerie worked a kayak oar like a contact staff. She combined cabaret-style dance with body rolls. She also did a nice sequence while lying down and manipulating with her feet.

Dominique de la Terra from Australia performed his recent circus school graduation act. His trademark is juggling while holding a fistful of balls and bouncing the tossed balls off the mound of balls rather than properly catching them – for a quick fireworks effect. He did cool slams and bounces with 4 balls and worked up to 7 with multiplexes and ended with a very solid 9 ball cascade.

 

 

Some highlights of the Wednesday Open Stage courtesy of Luke Burrage:

I came a bit late to the Women’s show but saw Irene de Paz “La Medeja” doing tightrope including dancing on toes and sliding across with wide almost split steps.

Duo Lisa & Marius did a routine with cool elbow balance catches. One threw a handful of clubs and the other caught one of the flock in a balance. They did many body balances and exchanges, all with good choreography and a likable style.

Clara Reina is a hooper who worked with 1 and 2 dancing around the stage. She did many nice isolation illusions.

Paloma Freestyle from Mexico did hackysack and football foot juggling. She included head rolls and also lying on her back and doing kick tricks.

Aurélien Oudot did acrobatic contortions dance with lots of back bends, walk overs, and layout flips

Meshubash is a 3 person acro team that did lots of standing and handstand pyramid tricks.

Thursday night’s Open Stage was emceed by Richard Hartnell

Aldo from Peru opened sitting on a bench and bounce juggling between his legs. He had a clever trick where he threw the ball behind himself and leaned forward so the bench lifted and angled the bouncing ball back over his head and into his hands. He created a structure with two benches and bounced/ricocheted the balls all around. Then he arranged the two benches in a V and did some cool patterns with 3 and 4. Without the bench he did force bounce and multiplexes and then did a 7 ball lift bounce. For his finale, he stood on a tall two-high bench structure and force bounced 5.

Philippe from France/Italy came on in whiteface and manipulated a staff in contact style (no hands) and was particularly adept with his feet. He could twirl around his ankles and kick rolled the staff up his thigh, torso, and shoulders, down his body to his other foot. Lying on his back, he twirled the staff on the sole of his foot and then rolled on his stomach, continuing the sole twirl. His ending of holding a long handstand while spinning on his sole got him a huge standing ovation.

Humberto from Mexico did 4 hats juggling with various siteswaps and then did 3 with body tricks such as shoulder rolls and head catches. He kicked up a hat to the heal of his other foot bent behind him. He did 4 hats in a shower and did a 5 hat cascade. All throughout he arranged the hats around his head to create clever mask characters.

Julien Saether from Norway did a sweet routine with 3 gold balls. He would catch the balls at their peaks and kind of float away. A great juxtaposition between fast tricks and slow weightlessness. He did a very visual windmill pattern and the short routine ended with the audience wanting more.

Anna de Mas from Barcelona danced and performed with glo fans that changed colors and patterns to cool effect. She also did color-changing glostick poi.

Christoph did an original routine with a ball and 5 walled cube (one side was open such that it allowed the ball to go in and out). He rolled and threw the ball onto and into the cube in a tennis ball and can style, but with added effects and illusions (because of the nature of the prop and not being able to see which direction the ball would come out of). He also did some fun tricks with 2 balls and cubes.

 

Luis from Portugal did diabolo combining old school suns and swinging tricks with more modern suicides and genocides. He skillfully moved on to vertax and did even more fast tricks.

Ryo from Japan danced while juggling 3 clubs. He did lots of flourishes and twirls with clubs while prancing around the stage and did some nice scissors catch moves.

Christopher from Brazil closed the show with his unique style. His specialty is head balance and kicking balls up easily to the top of his head. He also worked with his whole body doing foot and knee catches and placements as well as neck traps quickly and frantically. While juggling 3 balls, he kicked up a fourth to the top of his head. He did a long 5 ball routine while balancing a crystal ball on his head. Aside from numerous siteswaps and patterns, he did a 1 high pirouette into 5 cascade and later a full 3-up pirouette while maintaining the balance. He got a huge standing ovation.

Fight Night highlights included countries like Belgium and Israel with large cheerleading sections and some funny antics. See the Fight Night website for event details and results. Here’s Luke’s footage of the event:

Friday I did some really fun passing with Oriyan doing “3-count 4-count” and “1-count, 2-count,” each of which entails both partners doing different counts.

The Diabolo Battle was crazy wild with fast-paced competitors taking 30 second turns wowing the audience.

Open Stage emceed by Ramona, a very likeable character who did ball spinning between acts.

I didn’t manage to get the official lineup names, so I apologize for the lack of names/misspellings and, sadly, lack of photos.

The first act did ball juggling with many grab snatches and headrolls. He proceeded with 5 ball tricks then kicked a hat and banana to his head and hand. He did similar with hat, ball, and club. He did 2 hats and 2 balls in a fountain and finished with a nearly successful flash of 7 hats.

Olli Vuorinen started with a super long run of 3 ball shoulder and behind the back throws and did a very smooth routine while rolling around the stage doing windmills, slams, and grabs. Very aesthetic and good body movement.

Carolina came on next doing dramatic hoop and dance. She twirled and manipulated 2 in poi swinging moves and then went on to 3 with various visual figures. She spun 4 on her arms and then hooped all 4 around various parts of her body.

One of my favorite acts of the night was with flowersticks. It included tons of handstick flourishes and many body moves. He did tons of tricks with 2 including a really pretty 2 flowerstick shower.

Emanuel from France did 3 balls with a silly interpretive dance. He did crazy hard body throws and body traps which earned him a mini standing ovation.

Matti from Chile started his 4 club routine with 534 using different spins. He did nice 4 club shoulder pads and then did 5 with multiplexes and then a cascade with backcrosse. He ended with really fast 3 club sequences.

Max and Jan came on in underwear jamming their best tricks from 3-7 balls. Mills messes, pirouettes, backcrosses and many siteswaps and patterns. A very nice visual feast.

Mauritzio and Javier closed the show. First a solo routine with 5 clubs including 4 with a balance, and then 3 while bouncing a ball on a head pedestal. The partner arrived and they did passing with 5 clubs and a soccer ball while heading the ball back and forth. The second solo routine was with soccer balls: first 3 with headrolls and body rolls and spinning one on each hand and kicking up the third to a head bounce. He juggled 4 and then went into 3 with a head bounce, and he finished with 5 soccer ball cascade.

Saturday morning I volunteered at the registration desk again, this time with Caroline Sweet. We sold lots of day tix and gala tix to public.

The weather finally cooled down a bit. If it had been like this the whole week it would have made a huge difference.

In the gym, I drooled over the numbers jugglers doing their crazy stuff:

I also had my best training session of the week. Too bad it takes me a week to get into my rhythm of good juggling, because now it’s nearly over.

The evening Gala audience smelled like jugglers.

The emcee was Wilbur, who kept us entertained with his energy and acrobatics.

Cía Nicanor de Elia is a quintet of folding ring jugglers and manipulators. They came on stage with grander and fancier folded ring headdresses and performed a number of unique manipulations. They pulled the rings around themselves and the others in well-choreographed interactions.

The emcee did a backflip while throwing a huge ball on the air.

John Dogovone did acrobatics flips and rolls on a yoga ball. For his finale he mounted it blindfolded and dropped from standing to a bouncing flip off the ball.

Fernanda Sumano came in a cat leotard and a huge smile and even huger energy to manipulate hoops. She didn’t take herself too seriously as she juggled and spun them around her body. She executed beautiful Bramson rolls while spinning a ring on her outstretched foot. Another cool trick was spinning 4 hoops on her arms while balancing one hoop on her face, and then rolling it back to a foot spin. She also juggled 5 and then spun 7 all around her body and earned a standing ovation for her skills and style.

Wilbur did handstands with outrageous humor and super hard tricks.

Cía Les Objets Volants are five men from France and they smacked Boomwackers (percussion tubes) around to various tunes in complicated and aesthetic choreographed passing patterns. Another standing ovation.

Helena Humme is a topless trapeze artist who incorporated a unique style of swinging side to side and also doing many of her poses off to the side of the trapeze in unexpected ways. Standing ovation.

One of my favorite acts was Zak McAllister’s spotlight and ring act. Focusing the light dramatically with one hand, he did various shadowy ring manipulations before setting the light down to shine on his 7 ring cascade from below. He did 6 rings with a pulldown and 5 in pancakes. He did 4 rings with a face roll shower and then 3 in body rolls and many surprising tricks such as 3 in a shower under his legs and caught behind his shoulder. He ended with 6 ring half shower and got a deserved standing ovation.

Marica Marinoni from Italy trained on the Cyr wheel and did sudden and dramatic poses and direction changes, and had a unique way of dragging her body out of the wheel and rolling half out. It was a breathtaking energy and got a standing ovation.

For the finale, Kateryna Nikiforova from Ukraine sat on a V shaped structure and bounced balls in various fast shower and other patterns. She moved up to 5 and 6 in super fast patterns in all different directions for a really high energy and visual feast. My favorite was her 5 ball multiplex pattern where the balls chased each other. Her perfectly executed act got a standing ovation.

After the show, the Spain team passed the torch to the Irish team (figuratively, not sure why not literally). See you next year in Ireland!

Some nice compilation videos of EJC:

Luke Burrage’s EJC review podcast:

Zak McAllister’s EJC review:

Logan’s EJC Vlog, part 1:

Logan’s EJC Vlog, part 2:

TG JUGGLING’s August Juggling News (turn on captions for English):

Huge collection of photos from Catherine Jane Bailey: https://www.flickr.com/photos/catherinejbailey/albums/72177720301348888/page1

Photos on the EJC facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ejc2022madrid/photos