By David Cain
In late October of 2025, I traveled to the tourist destination of Branson, Missouri (USA) to visit Diana Chirrick, the widow of famed juggler Michael Chirrick, which also makes her the daughter-in-law of Lottie Brunn. I did this in order to take possession of a carload of Michael and Lottie’s juggling props for the Museum of Juggling History. While there, Diana, who works in the hospitality industry in Branson, took me to two shows. One of the shows, Anthems of Rock, included an extreme lack of juggling! But the other show, the Grand Shanghai Circus, included far more juggling than I expected to see.
The Shanghai Circus has been in Branson for 25 years and can be found at the Mickey Gilley Grand Shanghai Theatre. The cast consisted of twelve talented performers who demonstrated a very wide variety of skills. The audience was welcome to take non-flash photography and since we were seated in the second row of VIP seating, I was able to take photos with my new phone. I only took photos of juggling-related acts, but the other acts that I won’t discuss in detail included a traditional Chinese mask magic act, ladder balancing, Chinese pole, contortion, hand balancing, a duo silk act, Cyr wheel, hoop diving, and tumbling. All these acts, and the ones discussed below, were extremely well presented and were done flawlessly. Let’s take a look at the juggling-related acts.
Two women presented a foot juggling act with parasols, which appeared to be more durable and heavier than standard parasols. They each balanced, rotated, and flipped one parasol in a variety of ways.
The second part of the act consisted of one performer lying on her back and supporting the other with her feet while the top performer spun three rugs while balancing a parasol.
The final part of the act consisted of balancing multiple parasols at the same time. Clips on the parasols assisted in keeping them together.
The next act was a wonderful demonstration of traditional Chinese jar juggling using large ceramic jars. The two male performers tossed the heavy jars and caught them on the head and neck, spun them like a ball, balanced them, and rolled them along their arms.
The next juggling act was a ball juggling and ball bouncing act. Ball bouncing is not a traditional Chinese performing skill, but it has become more popular by Chinese performers in the past decade or so. This act included in-the-air juggling with three and four balls and ball bounce juggling with three to seven balls. The act was not innovative, but it was done flawlessly. He even included a five-ball pattern that I invented in the 1980s!
Next came a two-person diabolo act. Like most traditional Chinese diabolo acts, it was performed by women and featured a lot of acrobatics and movement rather than the more complex tricks done by more modern diabolists. The work included tightly choreographed side by side work as well as front rolls and back flips while the diabolo was in the air. One performer did some basic work with two diabolos, but the combination of diabolo and acrobatics would probably be the most impressive aspects of the acts for any jugglers watching.
The next act that included juggling was a rola bola act. After doing some common tricks on a simple rola bola, the performer got on a three-tube-high rola bola and did work with two hoops, followed by hat juggling while slowly turning 360 degrees.
Next was a hula hoop act. It started with some single and double hoop isolation / contact work and then moved on to fairly standard multiple hula hoop work. It was nothing that most jugglers haven’t seen, but was again performed quite well.
My favorite juggling act of the show was the juggling chef and his assistant. This opened with plate juggling with some arm sliding tricks.
Next was the juggling of a ladle, knife and potato.
Next was spinning with a pot.
Then came a comedy bit of balancing a bottle on a stick with a reveal that they were attached.
Next came a version of the classic pole balance with object on top. The assembly falls out over the audience, and it’s revealed that everything is attached with fishing line.
Next was the rarely seen art of plate waltzing. You can click here to learn more about this skill.
The finale of the show featured club juggling, ball juggling, hat juggling, jar juggling, and diabolo.
For myself, and most likely for many Western jugglers, the acts that stood out were the ones we don’t see often, such as the jar juggling act and the juggling chef act. Nevertheless, the Shanghai Circus in Branson puts a lot of juggling on display. The show changes cast and routines from time to time, so if you go, you may see some different acts, such as plate spinning, which is featured on the show’s website but wasn’t in when I saw it. Regardless, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this action packed show.
David Cain
David Cain is a professional juggler, juggling historian, and the owner of the world's only juggling museum, the Museum of Juggling History. He is a Guinness world record holder and 16 time IJA gold medalist. In addition to his juggling pursuits, David is a successful composer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and singer as well as the author of twenty-six books. He and his children live in Middletown, OH (USA).