IJA eNewsletter – June 2020

IJA Home Page

www.juggle.org

   IJA eNewsletter   

June 2020

Editors: Don Lewis & Martin Frost
(ijanews@juggle.org)

 CONTENTS

  • Voting open for the online Board of Directors election
  • IJA 2020 Online, July 13-19
  • 2020 World Joggling Championships are open
  • Candidacy statements from IJA Board nominees
  • Watch 2019 IJA fest videos free on eJuggle — DVD set also available
  • Latest articles in eJuggle
  • Upcoming juggling festivals

Voting open for the online Board of Directors election  by Don Lewis

The IJA election for members of the Board of Directors will take place entirely online this year.

The IJA Board of Directors is comprised of seven people who make policy and collectively decide on the direction of the IJA.  Each director is elected for a two-year term.  There are four director positions up for election this year, so IJA members can vote for up to four people in this election.

The nominees are listed below in the order nominated.  Please review their statements, which are shown elsewhere in this eNewsletter as well as online.

Who can vote?  All regular, life, youth, and family IJA members who will be at least 13 years of age as of July 16, 2020, can vote.

How do I vote?  Use this link to sign in and vote.  It will ask you to enter your IJA password and then it should take you to the voting page.  (If it doesn’t, after signing in, go to IJA 2020 election and cast your ballot there.)

When can I vote?  You can vote now or anytime until 30 minutes after the end of the online IJA annual meeting, which starts at 7pm EDT on Thursday, July 16, 2020.

Thanks for helping decide who will lead the IJA.  Online voting is easy and only takes a minute or two.

IJA 2020 Online, July 13-19

IJA 2020 Online is just a few short weeks away!  We hope you’ll join us the week of July 13-19.

We’ll be having shows, panels, workshops, an awesome ‘From the Archives’ movie night by David Cain, IJA Award Presentations, IJA Online Juggling Championships, IJA Joggling Competition, and our Annual General Meeting.

The event will be held across different platforms, with the shows and panels streamed live on IJA Facebook and YouTube.  Everything will be free and open to the public (except only members can view the Online Juggling Championships), and we will be soliciting donations, running a raffle (prize announcements soon), and selling fest apparel to help pay for the event.

There will be four shows:

  • Bindlestiff Open Stage Variety Show Quarantine Edition and IJA Welcome Show — Monday, July 13, 7:30pm EDT / 11:30pm GMT
  • Flow Show — Wednesday, July 15, 3pm EDT / 7pm GMT
  • IRC Show — Friday, July 17, 8pm EDT / 12am GMT
  • Cascade of Stars — Saturday, July 18, 8pm EDT / 12am GMT

Here are some panels planned for this year (the panel schedule and final panels list will be out soon):

  • Juggling History, with David Cain
  • Practice Methodologies, with Matt Hall
  • Women in Juggling, with Josie Mae
  • POC Experience in Juggling, with Sky King
  • Internationalization of the Juggling Community, with Erin Stephens
  • A live episode of “Drop Everything with Dan Holzman”

Please plan on attending the IJA Annual General Meeting at 7pm EDT on Thursday, July 16, 2020.

We’d love to have you teach a workshop!  Apply at IJAWorkshops.

If you’re willing to help out with the online fest, please email wieliczka@juggle.org.  We’re particularly looking for volunteers to help moderate chat during the fest (and build hype).

Stay tuned to juggle.org/festival and our Facebook event page for the latest information.

IJA Online Juggling Championships

As part of the online festival, we will be hosting the 2020 IJA Online Juggling Championships for Individuals and Juniors divisions.  To enter the Juniors, you must be under 18 as of July 16, 2020.  For health reasons, there will be no Teams division.

All medalists will receive a 2021 IJA festival package, and 1st and 2nd place winners will receive some travel reimbursement for 2021.

You be the judge!

The judges for this year’s IJA Juggling Championships will be all the IJA members. You won’t just be in the audience — you’ll be one of the judges, using the standard IJA Championships scoring method.  The competition videos and scoring directions for judges (you) will be available from July 5-16.  Scores must be submitted by Thursday, July 16, and the winners will be announced on Saturday, July 18.

To view and/or score the competitors, you’ll have to be a current IJA member with an IJA username and password.  See if you need to renew your membership, and we suggest that you verify in advance that you can sign in on the IJA website.

How to enter the Online Championships

If you want to enter the competition, make a video of your act in one continuous shot in landscape (horizontal) orientation.  Your routine must be at least 5 minutes and no more than 8 minutes for Individuals or 7 minutes for Juniors.  See the full details for competitors.

The deadline to enter is very soon: 11:59pm EDT June 30th.

The IJA has taken steps to ensure that copyrighted music can be used for Championships and show performances for viewing on social media.  From our understanding, our current music policy should apply.  In the instance that one of the social media platforms decides a video cannot be hosted, the IJA will attempt to correct the situation with the platform host.  If it cannot be corrected, the IJA will play the video without sound and may note what songs the performance uses for the audience to listen along if they choose.

 

 

2020 World Joggling Championships are open  by Emily Moore

Join us for our annual joggling contest – online this year.  There will be two categories this year: Fun Run and Competitive.  Get ready to have some fun and/or really push yourself in this year’s unique joggling championships!

Fun Run — There’s no entry fee or requirement for a video, but you are encouraged to share.

Competitive — There’s a $25 entry fee and you’ll be eligible for awards and having

your achievements officially announced by the IJA.  You’ll need to shoot a continuous video that shows the juggling pattern at all times.

Enter either category by filling out the Registration Form, which includes a waiver.

Once you’ve finished either run, enter your results on the Submission Form.

Before you race, please read the instructions in both forms carefully, including for video requirements and examples.

The official events are:

  • 100 meter – 3 ball, 5 ball, 7 ball
  • 400 meter – 3 ball, 5 ball
  • 800 meter – 3 ball
  • 1 mile (1609.3 meter) – 3 ball
  • 5K – 3 ball

Other events are welcome but are not eligible for awards (competitive division).  For example, check out this 4-ball 100-meter run captured by a 360-degree camera (drag the image or click any of the four pointers in the corner to see different views).

Entry in both categories will remain open until 12:00pm EDT July 18.

If you have questions, please contact: joggling2020@juggle.org

 

 

Candidacy statements from IJA Board nominees

The names and candidacy statements of nominated IJA Board candidates are shown below, in the order nominated.  Vote for up to four of them.  You can sign in and quickly vote online from now until 30 minutes after the end of the online IJA annual meeting, which starts at 7pm EDT on Thursday, July 16, 2020.

Chris Garcia

Hi my name is Chris Garcia, aka Draco the Juggler.  I’m a professional juggler who originally began juggling under the guidance of Matt Hall in 2003.  Juggling has been a major part of my life and I have learned many different props including toss (ball/club/ring), cigar box, contact, yoyos, spin-tops, flow props (poi, rope dart), balancing props (unicycle, rola bola), and my all-time favorite prop the diabolo.

I’ve been a long-time follower of the IJA and feel that my efforts to spread the love of juggling is in alignment with the IJA’s motto “to render assistance to fellow jugglers”, and I would love to further be able to do so as a board member.  I think my diverse skillset as both a juggling performer/teacher and engineer would prove valuable to the IJA.

In high school and college I was part of my schools’ juggling clubs as president, and in college the club and I organized the first 4 Santa Cruz Juggling Festivals.  Upon graduating UCSC with a BS in Computer Science & Game Design I worked in the tech industry for a number of years as a programmer making video games, and doing juggling gigs on the side.  Since 2017 I’ve pursued juggling and freelance work full time through my own business.  To this day juggling still plays a major role in my life; I love performing, and teaching those around me how to juggle.  I’ve won a few awards as a juggler, some being the CA diabolo champion, the Humboldt Juggling Fest most inspirational juggler, and the Pocono JuggleFest best trick award.  I have also had the honor of being invited to perform & teach at various juggling festivals around the world, often go to schools to teach juggling, have taught as an instructor at circus camps, and more often than not have taught the interested spectator in the park.  You can find out more about me on me websites www.dracothejuggler.com and www.cdgarcia.net.

Matan Presberg

My name is Matan Presberg, I have been working on the IJA Social Media team since the Fall of 2017, and have served on the Board of Directors for the last two years.  I have found my work for the IJA to be one of the most fulfilling professional experiences of my lifetime, and feel that I have been able to provide a lot of value to the organization.  For those two reasons, I am running for a second term on the board.

My passion for juggling, and what I have gotten out of being a part of the community motivates me to help organize within the community, and promote juggling outside of the community.  The IJA as an organization has enabled that work in a meaningful way, and I intend to continue my volunteer work regardless of my status on the board.  I think that the relationships I’ve built with other IJA volunteers, and my role on the Social Media team put me in a strong position to help move the IJA forward in a direction that is good for the organization and the juggling community at large.

Jacob D’Eustachio

When I first joined the IJA in 2001, it was the place for all things juggling.  Through reading “Juggle Magazine,” I joined a juggling club, attended my first regional festivals, and learned about Kris Kremo, with whom I later apprenticed.  Without the IJA, I wouldn’t have attended Ecole de Cirque de Quebec, performed in 15 countries, or competed in Moscow’s Nikulin Circus Festival.  Right now, I don’t know if the IJA could do the same thing for a young juggler.  I very much want it to.

If I were on the IJA Board of Directors, I’d work for outreach and social activism.  On the outreach front, I’d work on editing our online content to be stronger all around and encourage the return of a printed IJA magazine, which would give our members the feeling of receiving a gift and would be a give away item to attract new members.

In terms of social activism, I’d build on what I learned in 2010 when I taught for South Africa’s Zip Zap Circus, which attracts students from the Townships as well as from wealthier backgrounds.  Zip Zap students have competed in Paris’s Festival Cirque de Demain while the program has simultaneously improved the lives of Township students living with HIV.  Through its clear goals and social outreach, Zip Zap is also able to attract the world’s best circus artists to coach for free.

Inspired by Zip Zap, the IJA could do more to reach out to the local community during festivals, for instance, by holding a parade through the host city, and teaching workshops in communities of color.  By using our craft in part for social activism and community building, we would be giving professionals a reason to want to share their expertise and time with us.  Awareness of having used their skills in juggling for the social good would increase our members’ pride in our organization.  In turn, communities would be proud that they were chosen as IJA festival sites.

I would be honored to pursue these goals on the IJA Board of Directors.  Thank you very much!!

Scott Steiskal

In 2014, a clown invited me to go to a juggling festival.  So I begged the boss at my corporate job for a week off and drove down to Purdue.  What I found was one of the most creative, inclusive, interesting and welcoming group of humans I have had the pleasure to know.

Two years ago I joined the organizing team of my local juggling festival.  The mondo juggling festival.  One year ago I was appointed to a one year term on the IJA board.

During that year I have been exploring ways to increase the IJA’s capital.  The first action I have taken is to create a merchandise store that will allow us to sell a t shirt for our online festival.

If re-elected I would have the following goals for a second term:

1. Find additional ways to fund the IJA including; expanding our merchandise in the online store, adjusting our options for accepting payments in more countries and investing existing grant capital with the help of knowledgeable partners.

2. Use what we learned this year in the online festival to continue offering parts of the festival online.

I am announcing my candidacy for the IJA board of directors because I want to help more people experience this wonderful community.  I’m still at that corporate job and I want to use the skills I’ve learned in event planning, training, marketing and graphic design to make this community known to as many people as possible.

I would be honored to continue serving on the board and humbly ask for your vote.

Mike Moore

I’ve been an IJA board member for the last two years, and the Chair for the last year.  In that time, my contributions have been both public-facing and internal.

I coordinated and directly contributed to the IJA tutorial series.  While you’ve probably seen some of the 11 tutorials released, ranging from cigar box shuffle stacks to 3 ball inverted box to 4 ring kickups, you may not have realized that they are all available in at least four different languages!  This involved recruiting and coordinating translators who generously donated their time to this great project.  This unites our communities and benefits us all!

Internally, I’ve focused on fairness, inclusivity, and general administration.  I developed a protocol for expelled members to re-apply for membership, and a metric for evaluating those applications.  I’ve authored bylaw changes to reflect both technological shifts (email is finally official) and cultural shifts (dated gendered language is out).

Though I’ve made many administrative improvements, my greatest contribution in this area has been to empower other board members.  This includes running meetings with due diligence (but without them going for too long!), refining ideas and motions put to the board, and helping on many committees.

I see the IJA’s future as more international than ever.  Through breaking down language barriers, leveraging social media, and better utilizing our regional representatives, I believe we can provide better service to our community.  Let’s learn from, teach, and celebrate each other!

 

 

Watch 2019 IJA fest videos free on eJuggle — DVD set also available

The official videos of the 72nd Annual IJA Festival are available to watch free on eJuggle for IJA members.

Relive all the excitement that our 2019 festival in Fort Wayne, IN, had to offer, including full stage competition routines and highlights of the activities that took place during the week.

The 2019 DVD set can also be purchased in the IJA store for $30 to IJA members and $40 for non-members.

We hope you’ll enjoy revisiting the 2019 festival.

2019 IJA Festival Video Part 1

2019 IJA Festival Video Part 2

2019 IJA Festival Video Part 3

2019 IJA Festival Video Part 4

 

Latest articles in eJuggle

 

Upcoming juggling festivals

Note: Virtually all juggling festivals planned for the coming months have been canceled or rescheduled because of the worldwide pandemic, though some will be held online. 

To find a juggling fest near you or online, check the fest list at The Juggling Edge.  Eventually festivals will return.

 

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