Philadelphia Juggling Festival 2025 Review

By JoAnn Ireland

Philadelphia Juggling Festival at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts

The Philadelphia School of Circus Arts (PSCA) (https://phillycircus.com) and Circadium (https://circadium.edu) hosted the Philadelphia Juggling Festival (https://circuscampusphiladelphia.com/JugglingFestival), which was a full weekend of juggling for professionals, hobbyists, and beginners. The festival commenced on Friday, June 13th at 5:00 PM with open juggling. The weekend festival cost $30 (which included the Saturday evening show ticket, and cost less if purchased in advance), or if you were interested in purchasing items a la carte, $5 per day and $20 for the Saturday evening show. Juggling festival t-shirts were also for sale and there were a few other Philadelphia juggling club t-shirts and polo shirts for sale within the gym, in addition to PSCA t-shirts and hoodies. There was one vendor, “Handles!” (https://handles-vsnick.square.site), who came in from Alabama and had 3D printed and wood jewelry for sale.

The circus campus is 20,000 square feet of indoor training space, has two large gymnasium spaces, smaller classrooms for workshops, and Greg Kennedy’s Innovative Juggler (http://www.innovativejuggler.com) studio. There was also lots of parking – that’s rare for Philadelphia, and attendance was so good that attendees had to think outside the lines for parking alternatives, at least on Saturday. PSCA is conveniently adjacent to the Upsal SEPTA regional rail station on the Chestnut Hill West line that runs through downtown Philadelphia and the 30th Street Amtrak station; however, trains don’t run very frequently on the weekends. There was also a large green space with picnic tables, so you could bring your own food. Speaking of food, this year there was also food, snacks, and drinks for sale, with the proceeds going toward a trip to France for circus school attendees.

Philadelphia Juggling Festival at the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts

On Saturday, June 14th, the festivities started at 10:00 AM, which was also World Juggling Day this year, an absolutely great day to hold such a large juggling festival. There were numerous workshops at this festival, which really makes sense considering it is located at a circus school – 15 scheduled workshops on Saturday and another six on Sunday. These included topics such as:

  • Things other than throwing and catching – Greg Kennedy (both on Saturday and Sunday)
  • Ring throwing techniques – Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse
  • Beginner / intermediate diabolo – Stephen Doutt
  • Intro to Bramson and shoulder rolls with hoops – Stacey Strange
  • Intro to contact club – Donnell Griffith
  • Avoiding and addressing common juggling injuries – Matt Walmsley
  • Contact juggling – Ben Lipman
  • Curvy clubs – Tim Air-Walker
  • 3 ball juggling – Jackie Erickson
  • 2 prop flow fundamentals – Lauren Raske
  • Weird club balances – Jasper Murphy
  • Staff juggling – Stephen Haines
  • 360s / pirouettes – Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse
  • Seal roll in face balance – Elliott Kaplan
  • Ball multiplexes – Luther Bangert
  • Stacks and shoots with clubs – Tim Air-Walker
  • 2 balls 1 hoop – Ty Vennewitz
  • Side-by-side club passing – Erin Gettleman and Josh Spaugh
  • Juggling and choreography – Luther Bangert
  • Inverted box – Bennett Santora

There was also the continuously available, “Learn to Juggle,” station with a large container of beanbags for beginners to use. Similarly, there was also a container of diabolos available for general use, which if you’ve ever taught anyone to juggle, is a good alternative to allow for development of interest and success for beginners.

 


Philadelphia Juggling Festival at PSCA

 


The Games – club balancing, five club endurance, and combat at the Philadelphia Juggling Festival

The games took place from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM and were very well participated in and watched by attendees. Some of the games included: 5 and 7 ball (and club!) endurance, 3 ball blind juggling where competitors could start juggling with their eyes open, 3 ball “Jasper” Says – that’s Simon Says hosted by Jasper Murphy, huggling – where two individuals hug while each juggle three, the most 1-up 360s in one minute, four-count slow passing, and three rounds of three-club combat. There was also quarter juggling, the price of participation was only 75 cents, with the last individual juggling their three quarters winning all of the quarters in play from the participants. Club balancing was another game that included challenges like balancing the club on your face while also balancing on one foot, spinning in a circle, or when it got down to three competitors, doing a seal roll or crab-walking backwards. Game winners received very appropriately soft pretzels from the Philly Pretzel Factory and four game winners for the 7 ball endurance, 3 ball blind, 3 ball “Jasper Says,” and combat, received cool 3D printed trophies of the boxer Sylvester Stallone from the movie, “Rocky,” holding his arms up in victory while clutching three clubs. Of course, the movie “Rocky” was extensively filmed in Philadelphia, famously at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum. Fun fact – the top of the Philadelphia Art Museum steps used to be the summertime location for the Philadelphia Juggling Club. There was also a big toss-up group photo on Saturday afternoon.

The pre-show performance, emcee Andrew Scharff, Greg Kennedy, and David Darwin

The public show was at 7:30 PM, located within the lower level gym where there is also a stage, folding chairs were set up for the large audience, and it included many wonderful performances. Andrew Scharff (https://www.andrewsbigshow.com) was the emcee and he has been performing circus arts and physical comedy worldwide for thirty years. He let the audience know up front that they were going to see unbelievable acts – versus when audiences see him perform, they think, “yeah I believe that.”

So I missed the vast majority of the pre-show performance – yeah, I showed up late thinking the show wouldn’t start exactly on time, but I was fairly warned that the show was going to start on time. The pre-show performance included three individuals who were part of the PSCA summer intensive class that took place immediately preceding the festival from June 9th -13th. As a side note, the tuition for the class cost $575 and the summer intensive class was modeled after the regular school curriculum, with classes in acrobatics, aerials, and juggling complemented by circus, theatre, dance, and artistic creation. The three individuals on stage juggled clubs, balls, and manipulated umbrellas.

Greg Kennedy was the first performer. He has been creating original forms of juggling and object manipulation for the last 30 years. As Andrew jokingly pointed out, Greg owns two of every woodworking instrument known to man and makes his own props, which he demonstrated in his performance. Greg artistically manipulated what started initially as a three-by-three grid of open wooden squares – think of it like a tic-tac-toe board with a border around the perimeter. It was constructed in such a way that the squares could be rotated on individual corners while remaining in one plane, such that he was able to create a variety of shapes and patterns, some of which were very reminiscent of the shapes in the video game Tetris. He was also able to remove individual squares, so he performed artistic manipulation starting with nine squares and worked his way down to three squares. It was a very unique way to start the show.

David Darwin was the next performer. He has evolved past sideshow into a new age of vaudeville and invited a volunteer onstage to assist with his performance of knife throwing. Unfortunately, I was located on the edge of the room – I know, I showed up late, so it’s my fault – and couldn’t get a great view of the entire performance.

Erin Gettleman and Josh Spaugh

The next act was the team of Erin Gettleman and Josh Spaugh who met in Philadelphia in 2019 and performed six and seven club passing and unique side-by-side partner passing, including an impressive five club cascade. They had a great time on stage during their performance.

 


Matt Walmsley

Matt Walmsley (https://jugglingmatt.com) was the next performer and he is an 18-year-old competitive juggler with almost a decade of juggling experience. Matt holds the title as the 2022 International Jugglers’ Association (IJA) Juniors Champion and the World Juggling Federation (WJF) 19 Advanced Overall Champion. He will be competing in back-to-back competitions – first in the Teams Division at the IJA, then at WJF22 in the Netherlands. Matt juggled 5 rings in numerous patterns and ring orientations, 5 balls with numerous pirouettes, and many tricks with 5 clubs including both 3-up and 5-up pirouettes. The stage had its challenges for him, considering he appeared to be trying to find the right space for enough vertical height.

Alli Hart

Alli Hart (https://www.thehoopdoc.com), also known as the Hoop Doc, is a multidisciplinary hoop and circus artist based in Philadelphia. She is also a Doctor of Physical Therapy who specializes in treating performing artists, including dancers and circus artists. She discovered her love for hoops and circus while studying dance at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Coming from an extensive performing arts and gymnastics background, Alli has been hooping for 12 years and juggling hoops for 8 years. Alli performed hoop manipulation with two and three hoops in a contemporary, edgy, and highly visual manner. She also spun five hoops and transitioned to juggling three LED hoops while spinning a fourth on her lower leg.

Trenton Circus Squad

The Trenton Circus Squad (https://trentoncircussquad.org) was the next act, and the three individuals showcased their juggling and passing of initially 9 and then 11 rings, which were beautifully visible in the stage lighting. One juggler on the shoulders of another, while the individual on top passed 6 rings with the third juggler on the ground. They continued to juggle three clubs each, with two jugglers also performing take-aways with three clubs.


Jasper Murphy

Jasper Murphy (aka Jasper Champ) (https://www.jasperjuggles.com) was the next act and he is a professional juggler and musician who performed a one-man-band piece, which humorously included a smoke detector low battery alarm as a musical instrument – this gave me a whole new appreciation for the smoke detector low battery alarm and how to use it.

Tim Air-Walker

Tim Air-Walker (https://www.juggle.org/club-juggling-by-tim-air-walker-from-usa-ija-tricks-of-the-month) closed out the first half of the show.  He is a content creator based out of North Texas. He started juggling clubs in 2015 and almost instantly fell in love with circular aesthetics, flat throws, and curvy patterns within club juggling. I hadn’t had the opportunity to see him perform before, but I’m definitely glad that I did. He initially manipulated one and then two clubs, giving the audience the impression that the clubs were aquatic animals based on the sounds of the ocean and wind chimes in the background. He then manipulated three clubs  effortlessly with a meditative mesh of flow, club spinning, body placement, and juggling with lots of flats and curvy / circular aesthetic patterns (imagine the club rotating around a point off the club that is in-line with the axis of the club and located away from the knob), while also including lots of choreographed stage movement. His performance received a very well-deserved huge crowd reaction.

Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse

Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse (https://jrbotvinick.github.io) opened the second half of the show. Jonah specializes in dynamical systems, mathematical physics and inverse problems at New York’s Cornell University Center for Applied Mathematics. In his performance he juggled up to 7 balls, 5 through 7 rings with many tricks with 5 rings. He then came down from the stage to get a bit more ceiling height and performed many tricks with 5 clubs and very impressively had a great run with 7 clubs.


Elliot Kaplan

Elliot Kaplan from New York was next performing a cane balancing routine to the Talking Heads, “Once in a Lifetime,” and also tied his necktie while balancing the cane on the bridge of his nose and performed a series of seal rolls. In the later portion of his act, he let loose by removing his white button-down shirt and neck tie, for a more artistic black t-shirt, as he continued his performance.


Tall Ty the Circus Guy

Tall Ty the Circus Guy was the next act and based on this very entertaining piece, he clearly loves juggling, family, and metaphors. During his performance he had many ways to collectively balance and juggle a derby hat, hula hoop, a club, and a ball while creating a very humorous metaphor about his job, wife, self, and kid. It was a very well received, humorous act, and definitely fun to watch.


Andrew Scharff

Andrew Scharff came back onstage to show off some home-made humorous kendamas, one was a really easy one if you find a regular kendama to be too difficult with a large bowl and ball, and the other had a deflated / punctured ball due to the sharp implements on the handle. It was an entertaining routine for the audience.

 


Lauren Raske

Lauren Raske was the next performer. She specializes in fire, light, and illusionary arts and is the founder and creative director of the specialty artists agency, 7textures (https://7textures.com). She initially artistically manipulated one square (made of thin pipe) that could be changed into a rhombus with varying interior angles, eventually adding a second one into her performance. She then continued her performance with a large, hollow, approximately three-foot by three-foot cube (also made of thin white pipe on the edges) that had flexibility at its vertices to allow for the creation of a multitude of shapes. It was a beautiful piece that tied well to Greg’s performance in the first act and showed the variety of possibilities and directions that juggling and circus arts can go in.

Next up was the Lipman Family  – Benjamin Lipman has been juggling for a long time, with one of his first experiences on stage at the Philadelphia Juggling Festival 28 years ago. This performance also featured Milo and Shelby Lipman, ages 12 and 14. Their act started with each of them juggling 3 balls, and then they also each rode a unicycle and performed tricks, like Shelby idling with one foot. Impressively, Benjamin also jumped rope, while Milo and Shelby spun a second rope in a Double Dutch style for him to also jump. Shelby proceeded to juggle three clubs on Ben’s shoulders while he also juggled three clubs, which included a 360-degree turn by them both. The three of them collectively passed nine clubs, which included comical interludes where first Milo, then Shelby jumped into Benjamin’s arms, and somehow he ended up carrying both Milo and Shelby. Benjamin and Milo also juggled three balls each in other balanced orientations, and concluded their act with the three of them collectively juggling 7 balls in a three-person multi-level balance.

 

 

 

LutherBangert

Luther Bangert (https://www.lutherbangert.com) was the next performer and likes to explore the relationship of technical juggling with fluid movement. He performed a three ball movement piece. Luther is based in Philadelphia and teaches at the Circadium School of Contemporary Circus.

Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse and Chris Hodge

The final incredible performance for the evening was Jonah Botvinick-Greenhouse and Chris Hodge. Chris grew up juggling and performing with his father and brothers as the Hodge Family Jugglers. He attended École de Cirque de Québec and is now a family doctor in upstate New York. Jonah and Chris set up a gravitational forces lab together a year ago, and the primary outcome of their research thus far has been the world record for juggling the most rings between two people. They started their performance with 10-ball passing, separating to perform tandem 5-ball juggling with plenty of tricks and 3-up pirouettes, and then resumed passing. They proceeded to pass 6 clubs on stage and moved to the floor to perform partner work with 5 clubs, with each juggling 5 clubs. Passing with rings was next; they started with 5 rings in a similar fashion as they had with clubs. Jonah then juggled with 7 rings. They both proceeded to pass 7 rings in various orientations (i.e., Frisbee style, or by facing each other or with one standing behind the other). Jonah and Chris then passed 10 and 12 rings, and for their amazing finale they concluded their act by passing 15 rings!


Public Show Performers 

After the Saturday evening show, there was a post-show fire and LED prop jam outside, although it was a bit drizzly, so it probably wasn’t as well participated in as it could have been for that reason. There was also an off-site Renegade-style show for attendees who were 18+. Juggling also continued on Sunday at PSCA throughout the afternoon with juggling and additional aforementioned workshops.

For some background on Circadium, its mission is to provide students with professional training in contemporary circus, and to prepare them for work in circus and related performing arts fields. Circadium is the first licensed and accredited higher education program for circus in the United States; it’s a 3-year curriculum fully focused on the skills and practice of circus arts, which was approved in 2017 by the Pennsylvania Board of Education as a vocational diploma program (not a Bachelor’s Degree). Tuition for the 2024-2025 school year was $12,980. Students must be 18 years old before the course begins and cannot be over 35 years old. International students can also apply to Circadium. The full-time curriculum includes coursework in acrobatics, aerials, juggling, physical theatre, dance, conditioning, and flexibility, along with supplementary work in dramaturgy, theater tech, prop design, circus history, and career planning. A strong emphasis is placed on the creation of original work, regular presentations, and public performances. The application period for the 2026-2027 school year is open from December 1, 2025, to January 31, 2026.

If you are interested in part-time, recreational, or youth training, that can be considered at PSCA, which is Circadium’s sister school. PSCA is a recreational program featuring the largest variety of circus classes, equipment, and disciplines in the region for students of all backgrounds, ages 2 and up. Youth classes are grouped by age with no prior experience required and are $80 – $195 per month, meeting weekly for 45 minutes to two hours. Adult classes are grouped by level (intro, beginner, intermediate, and advanced) at a range of prices ($30/class, 5 classes for $130, 10 classes for $220, or monthly with a minimum commitment of three months for $230). There are quite a variety of class options – e.g. rope, trapeze, flexibility, pole, lyra, sling, fabric, straps, trampoline, handstands, and tumbling. Private lessons are also available for 1-2 people at $100. PSCA also has options to hold circus parties at their site for kids or adults, as well as a few 1-week summer camp options for kids and teens. PSCA is also always looking for talented coaches; resumes are welcome (info@phillycircus.com).

Juggling can make one hungry and only a half-mile walk from PSCA within the Mt. Airy neighborhood is the High Point Cafe (https://highpointphilly.com) serving a variety of coffee and tea beverages, as well as an extensive list of sweet and savory crepes, with many other tasty baked good options. Across the street from the cafe is the very unique, “WPM Typewriter Shop,” (https://www.wpmtypewritershop.com) and its associated garden of typewriters; the shop offers sales and repairs. This was my first visit to a shop like this, and the shop and its owner, Pamela Rogow were fascinating; however, I opted not to compose this article on a typewriter.

Admission is valid for two days and is $30 for adults, $28 for seniors, $5 for youth age 13-18 and college students, and free for: children 12 and under, members, Philadelphia teachers, ACCESS / EBT cardholders / Art-Reach ACCESS cardholders, and active-duty US service members and family.

Another unique museum in Philadelphia that I don’t believe is very well known in comparison to other destinations in Philadelphia, but should be in my opinion, is the Museum for Art in Wood (https://museumforartinwood.org). The museum’s focus is aimed at fostering appreciation for the art, craft, and design in wood and at creating a space for the public to learn, enjoy, and be inspired. The permanent collection, which includes over 1200 objects, celebrates contemporary and historic work and encompasses a variety of themes, processes, and materials. Only a few of the highlights from the museum’s extensive permanent collection are shown here, including the “Fire-eating juggler,” by Charles and Tami Kegley. As was noted earlier, Greg Kennedy has numerous woodworking tools and one of his shows, Theorem, is a playful look at the process of invention and a tactile experience of natural materials: wood, steel, glass, and cloth – so why not take the opportunity to be inspired and see numerous examples of art with wood while in Philadelphia? The Museum of Art in Wood is located at 141 N. 3rd St. and is typically open Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5:00 PM and admission is free.

Not only did this festival weekend include World Juggling Day on Saturday, but it was also Father’s Day on Sunday. My father was in attendance and he has actively participated in numerous IJA and regional juggling festivals, whether he has been juggling, socializing with the jugglers, or sometimes sharing a few of his unique bicycles. There of course were many other fathers in attendance, practicing their juggling, watching the juggling, or helping their children learn more about juggling, so do not hesitate to bring your father, stepfather, grandfather… to this juggling event regardless of when it is held.

 

Huge thanks go out to Greg and Shana Kennedy for hosting the Philadelphia Juggling Festival at the PSCA, Jay Ko for recording the evening show and taking photographs during the festival, the many volunteers, as well as the performers for putting together an astounding Saturday evening show. Definitely keep a lookout for next year’s Philadelphia Juggling Festival!

 

Written and photographed by JoAnn Ireland.

JoAnn Ireland is a longtime hobbyist juggler who especially prefers juggling beanbags, joggles (running and juggling), and occasionally rides a unicycle. She is grateful for the opportunity to have been able to attend many IJA and regional juggling festivals.

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