Selma Braatz – The Girl Who Set the Juggling World Alight

By Dr. Steve Ward

Throughout the course of history here have been records of female jugglers. Many ancient civilisations have depicted women juggling. They have appeared on tomb paintings in ancient Egypt and on pottery artefacts from both the Roman and Greek eras. However, it was not until the rise of the music halls and variety theatres in the nineteenth century that women began to make names for themselves as serious jugglers. One of the more notable of these was Selma Braatz.

Selma was born in June 1885 in the “German Empire,” I suspect in Berlin, [1] and in a 2020 IJA article, [2] her parents were said to be Clara and Fritz Braatz, although this has never been confirmed. In a later 2024 IJA [3] article Clara was referred to as her aunt. Certainly, when she visited Australia later in her career Fritz Braatz was referred to as her uncle. [4] However, in a press article it was reported that “her uncle and manager taught her all she knew.” [5] Another article from the Australia tour also refers to Selma as being the niece of Clara Braatz, [6] who also performed her famous “bubble routine.” As both Clara and Fritz often travelled with her as her managers this might support the idea that they were not her birth parents. Selma came from a long line of entertainers. Her father, grandfather, and great grandfather were all involved in the Braatz circus until it was sold to the Russian circus owner named Solomonsky in the 1880s.

From the age of around 14, Selma was taught the art of juggling by her aunt Welda Braatz, an accomplished juggler in her own right, Clara Braatz (who may have been her aunt or mother), and the great gentleman juggler named Salerno. It was an arduous training that took many hours a day but was to reap the benefits for Selma in later years. In her life on stage, she was referred to as “the most accomplished feminine juggler,” [7] “the world’s greatest lady juggler,” [8] “the phenomenal lady juggler,” [9] and “the female Cinquevalli,” [10] amongst many other plaudits.

The 2020 IJA article cited claims that she made her debut at the Corso Theatre in Zurich in 1904. However, there is an earlier press advertisement for a Selina Braatz at the Palace Theatre in London dated 1 October 1903. [11] By 5 October the advertising has changed to give her name as Selma [12] and by 16 October a fuller description of her act was given for the first time,

SELMA BRAATZ, who appears the Palace this week, is a young lady juggler. Some of her tricks require wonderful manual dexterity. The principal feat she does is achieved with a number of lighted torches. The stage is darkened, and the orchestra strikes up a march tune. The youthful juggler throws her torches high in the air, and weaves fiery rings and circles to the time of the music (Music Hall and Theatre Review 16 October 1903)

It would appear that much of Selma’s early performing career, certainly up until the end of 1913, took place in the variety theatres of Britain. She spent a lot of that time contracted to the Moss Empires, which was founded by the merger of companies owned by Sir Edward Moss, Richard Thornton, and Sir Oswald Stoll in 1899. At its peak it was the largest chain of variety theatres in Britain, with over 50 venues. Many of these theatres bore the name “Empire” in their titles. The Moss chain of theatres provided a wealth of opportunity for variety artists and many, such as Selma Braatz, rose to fame through working in them.

Throughout the autumn of 1903, Selma continued performing at the Palace in London. She must have then taken an engagement across the channel in Paris because she appears for the first time in the French press in early April. She was appearing at the Nouveau Cirque on the Rue Saint-Honoré,

Demain Samedi, débuts de Selma Braatz, jongleuse équilibriste de tout premiere ordre (Le Petit Caporal 9 April 1904)

Tomorrow, Saturday, debut of Selma Braatz, a first-rate juggler and tightrope walker (Author translation)

She remained in France, working in Paris, Avignon, and Nimes throughout April and into May of that year. Her final showing in the French press, La Chronique Mondain 6 May 1904, seems to be for her appearance at the little Music Hall on the Rue Godin in Nimes. She was billed as “la plus forte jongleuse de l’époque” (The strongest juggler of the time – Author translation).

Returning to Britain for the remainder of 1904, she criss-crossed the country appearing in “Empire” variety theatres in Brighton, Bristol, Sheffield, Birmingham, Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Liverpool, Leeds, Hull, South Shields, Edinburgh, and finishing the year in December at the London Hippodrome. A casual look at a map of Britain will show the mileage that she must have covered on her “circuit” of performances. Sometimes in the above schedule she also made return visits to some theatres. It was an arduous life-style of continuous weekly bookings giving two shows each evening.

It was while she was appearing at the Empire Palace theatre in Sheffield in the September that we get the first indication of her act,

Selma Braatz does some clever juggling work with billiard cues and bats and umbrellas. She is quite a child and exhibits an extraordinary subtlety of hand. Her closing feat with lighted lamps received great applause (Sheffield Daily Telegraph 6 September 1904).

But these lighted lamps had an additional feature that wowed the audiences. Here, at the Empire Theatre in Belfast, we get a little more information,

Selma Braatz, lady juggler, performed a series of bewildering evolutions in a finished manner. Her last juggling act, in which lighted torches constantly changed colour, being pretty and effective (Belfast News-Letter 27 September 1904)

The lamps, which were later to become encased flare lights, had chemical compounds added to them to create different colours and were known commonly as Bengal Light Torches. An example of the later patented kind of torch can be seen at the online Museum of Juggling History. [13] Selma later advertised a number of these for sale in the 28 November 1908 edition of The Era. Juggling with fire had inherent dangers, as here recorded in the Sunday Times (Sydney, NSW) 8 February 1914,

Selma Braatz has not always performed her lamp-juggling item with the patented lamps that she now uses. Previously she had ordinary torches, and these led to a peculiar incident, when she was giving a drawing-room entertainment in a West-end home in London. A passer-by, catching sight of the flames leaping in all directions, shouted a cry of “Fire!” and with all speed the alarm was taken up. In a few moments a big crowd had gathered, and before long the engines had arrived in answer to a “genuine” call. The firemen thought that the mansion itself was alight. The chagrin of the firemen, however, when they heard that a lady juggler had caused all the animation was humorous to witness.

Selma Braatz received many plaudits for her juggling proficiency throughout her career. Perhaps the highest accolade of all was when she was compared to Cinquevalli, perhaps the most famous juggler of the period. Cinquevalli, born as Emil Braun [14] in 1859 in Lissa, Prussia, rose to fame as one of the first ‘gentlemen jugglers’ and performed with everyday objects such as bottles, plates, umbrellas, and suchlike. We come across the comparison between Braatz and Cinquevalli for the first time in 1904, while Selma was at the New Empire Palace theatre in South Shields,

THE FEMALE CINQUEVALLI – SARAH BRAATZ – The world’s greatest lady juggler. A revelation in dexterity and skill (Shields Daily News 14 November 1904)

This accolade would be used in her advertising many times during her career. Selma and Cinquevalli would later become good friends and often exchanged letters. In a much later copy of an Australian newspaper a report was given of their relationship,

Paul Cinquevalli, the famous juggler, and generally acknowledged to be the king of his class, is a great friend of Selma Braatz, the dainty lady juggler at the Tivoli Theatre. For years they have been corresponding, and both artists send one another new items, often, as soon as they get them. Paul thinks that Selma is his prototype among lady jugglers, for she does many tricks that are similar to his, and it is a dainty and graceful compliment to the artist that he always addresses her as ‘My dear little Pauline’ (The Referee (Sydney NSW) 11 February 1914)

Selma Braatz continued her contract at the London Hippodrome during January 1905. She shared the bill with Captain Woodward’s sea-lions and the ‘Chinese’ magician Chung Ling Soo, amongst others. At the end of the month, she spent a short time at the Gaiety Theatre in Birmingham, before travelling again to France. Between March and May she performed in Marseilles, Nice, and Paris, not at the Nouveau Cirque this time but at the Ambassadors Theatre.

By early December she was back at the London Hippodrome for a week before continuing on to Birmingham, Liverpool, Belfast, and finishing the year in Edinburgh. January 1906 saw her open in Hull and then on to Leeds. An article in the Yorkshire Evening Post gave the public a little more information on the early life of Selma Braatz,

Miss Selma Braatz, who has been bewildering the Leeds Empire audiences this week with her conjuring feats, is a German lady, and is related to the Braatz brothers, who built up for themselves a great reputation years ago in the athletic world. Her uncle and manager has taught her all she knows, and naturally he is very proud of the success of his apt pupil. Only a few years ago she was a girl type writer in Berlin, and her present proficiency is the result of hard work to the extent of sixteen hours a day. She performs all the feats that are considered the most difficult in the business, and her ever-increasing skill, and accuracy of hand and eye guaranteed her the title of ‘meister conjurer’ (Yorkshire Evening Post 27 January 1906)

From Leeds she continued on to Bradford, Newcastle on Tyne, Glasgow, London Hackney Empire, Sheffield, Walsall, Brighton, Bristol, Manchester, Burnley, and Wigan. At the beginning of May she travelled to the USA, where she opened at one of the Proctor Houses on May 7. [15] She remained in America and Canada until October, when she returned to Britain to open at the Manchester Hippodrome. For the rest of 1906 and through to April 1907, she relentlessly criss-crossed Britain again appearing at many of the Moss theatres. On 15 April 1907, it was announced in the Morning Advertiser that Sarah Braatz, and other performers, under the management of Sydney Hyman Ltd, left Southampton on 12 April on board the Kildonan Castle bound for Capetown and Johannesburg in South Africa. She remained in South Africa, performing at the Empire Theatre in Johannesburg and the Tivoli Theatre of Varieties in Capetown until the end of July 1907. She returned to the London Hackney Empire in August and then spent the remainder of the year touring Britain again, taking in venues in new areas for her such as South Wales and the Midlands. 1908 saw her making a six-week appearance at the London Hippodrome once more, before spending the rest of the year until September in Britain. One notable ‘new’ venue for her was a two-week appearance at the world-famous Blackpool Tower Aquarium and Variety Circus.

In October of 1908, Selma is recorded as being at Shea’s Theatre in Toronto. [16] She then spent the next two and a half years touring the USA and Canada before returning once again to Britain, opening at the Blackpool Tower Circus mid-July 1911. She continued touring Britain throughout 1911 and 1912. Her last recorded appearance on the British stage was in December 1912, as given in the Liverpool Courier (4 December 1912). The following year would see a big change for her. In the March and April of 1913 she was in Canada, as observed by the Ottawa Free Press (5 April 1913) but on 16 July 1913 it was announced,

Mr Harry Houdini, self-liberator and necromancer, and a real good fellow, was the chief attraction in a special mid-ocean performance given onboard the Norddeutscher Lloyd Kronprinzessin Cecilie – Captain Charles Polack. He had as companion artistes Mrs Clara Braatz, operatic whistler, and Miss Selma Braatz the famous lady juggler (The Era 16 July 1913)

She was bound once more for South Africa, where between October and December she appeared in Capetown, Johannesburg, and Durban. In Johannesburg she even received a gold medal for ‘the best juggling act seen in the land of the Boers’ (Punch, (Melbourne Vic) 8 January 1914). The Braatz group must have left South Africa sometime in December because Victoria State Shipping Records show that they arrived in Melbourne Australia in that month. [17] On 3 January 1914, Selma opened at Rickhard’s Opera House in Melbourne. [18] For the next three and a half months she toured Australia, not only performing in major centres like Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide but also in smaller communities such as Boulder, Bendigo, and Kalgoorlie, more famous for their mining exploits. In fact, during her tour she crossed Australia from east to west, finishing her tour mid-April at the Tivoli Theatre in Kalgoorlie with Rickhard’s Vaudeville Company. [19] During the tour, she was ably assisted by Clara Braatz, who gave performances in her own right,

Clara Braatz, who appears with her niece Selma Braatz at the Tivoli, is much more than an assistant. Her work with the soap-bubbles proves that. She blows a bubble and lets the bubble run up and down her extended arm, and then causes it to vanish by sending a gentle puff of breath in the direction of it. She works two bubbles in the same way at the one time, running them up and down both arms; and in addition she juggles with the bubbles, tossing them in the air, and catching and balancing the one on the other on her arm as they come down. The effect is delightfully dainty and pretty (The Daily News (Perth; W.A.) 27 March 1914)

It is also in the Australian press that we get a much fuller picture of Selma’s performance on stage, albeit with a rather patronising chauvinistic tone,

A girl in the role of a juggler is rather unique … To be an accomplished juggler requires long and patient training, and for a mere girl Selma Braatz has achieved a degree of proficiency which is a credit to her determination and quickness of hand and eye. She has mastered a number of clever feats, and does some things that surprise her audiences. On Saturday night she commenced juggling with a tennis racquet, and followed with a belltopper and stick [ a top hat and cane], which she tossed about and balanced in a variety of ways. Whirling the hat in the air, and throwing it back on to her head were easy feats. She was at ease while tossing half a dozen balls in quick rotation and changing the evolutions every few seconds. Billiard cues were tossed about without trouble. One of the young lady’s most difficult acts was to poise a billiard cue perpendicularly on her forehead, and to shoot a ball from a pop-gun on to the tip if the cue. This feat would test the skill of any juggler, and when a girl attempts it, it is a compliment to her pluck … Miss Braatz also throws the ball on to the cue in the same position. This she accomplishes without any trouble. Some other feats are performed to the rhythm of music, and are amusing as well as clever. One of the acts that won the young lady hearty applause was the balancing of a ray, a wine glass, another tray, and an egg on a billiard cue held upright. The trays are knocked away and the egg falls into the wine glass without breaking. The concluding act – and the one which aroused the heartiest approbation of the audience – was one in which coloured lamps were juggled with excellent spectacular effect. The stage lights are turned down for this performance, and this makes the feat all the more difficult, as the performer has to depend solely upon good judgement in catching the rapidly whirling lamps and keeping them in motion. A variety of evolutions with these coloured lamps made a pretty display, and crowned the young lady’s entertaining performance (Bendigo Advertiser (Vic) 23 February 1914).

Selma was certainly an accomplished female performer in a man’s world. She commanded respect for her work. She was well travelled and worked with many of the famous names on the variety theatre circuits of the era. Returning to her native Berlin after touring Australia, she devoted her time to her daughter Mickey, an accomplished dancer, before eventually settling in America in the late 1950s. It is something of a tragedy that, when she died in July 1973, there was no obituary documenting her trail blazing juggling work. The editor of the IJA Newsletter of August 1973 [20] made some efforts to discover more about the circumstances of her death but, as he wrote,

A copy boy at the offices of Variety on 46th street informed me that no one had ever heard of a lady juggler, much less Selma Braatz, and that neither the New York Times nor Variety had carried her obituary.

She was buried in relative obscurity in the Rosedale Cemetery, Linden, New Jersey. Her work should now be celebrated within the juggling community and beyond.

Notes

1. Yorkshire Evening Post 27 January 1906. This article refers to her as being a girl type writer in Berlin a few years earlier.
2. Velez, E. Selma Braatz; Europe’s Best Female Juggler of the 20th Century. eJuggle (International Jugglers Association), December 8 2020.
3. Velez, E. The Murder of Clara Braatz, Soap Bubble Juggler. eJuggle (International Jugglers Association), September 14 2024.
4. The Daily News (Perth. W.A.) 28 March 1914. Online at 28 Mar 1914 – IN THE THEATRES – Trove
5. Op. Cit. n1
6. The Daily News (Perth W.A.) 27 March 1914. Online at 27 Mar 1914 – BEYOND the FOOTLIGHTS – Trove
7. The Birmingham Mail 21 October 1904
8. Shields Daily News 14 November 1904
9. Birmingham Mail 30 January 1905
10. The Wigan Examiner 6 February 1905
11. The Stage 1 October 1903
12. St James’s Gazette October 5 1903
13. The Museum of Juggling History. Online at Selma Braatz
14. Åberg, E (2023) Cleverer than God. Modern Vaudeville Press
15. Music Hall and Theatre Review 11 May 1906
16. Toronto Saturday Night 31 October 1908
17. Unassisted Passenger Lists (1852-1923). Public Record Office Victoria, online at; Unassisted passenger lists (1852-1923) | PROV
18. The Argus (Melbourne Vic.) 2 January 1914
19. Kalgoorlie Miner (W.A.) 13 April 1914
20. IJA newsletter Vol. 25 No. 8 August 1973. Online at 25-08-pub-s.pdf

Steve Ward has a PhD in Social History specialising in the cultural and social history of the circus. He regularly gives talks and lectures on the subject, both in the UK and overseas, has appeared on television several times as a circus ‘expert’, and has written nine books to date on aspects of circus history. His website is steve-ward.weebly.com.