The Villams were a juggling troupe formed at the Hungarian State Circus School in Budapest. They graduated in 1956 after five years of training. The act consisted of Janos Csikasz, his wife, Ilona, her brother, Erwin Steiner, Laszlo Barkoci, and Jeno Kovacs. The team performed various acrobatics while expertly passing clubs and were most famous for their three person high passing among four members with twelve clubs.
In 1963, Erwin Steiner left the Villams to form the act Les Dougalls with his wife, Viviane Chambre. You can click here to read a previous article I wrote about Les Dougalls. The act continued as a threesome after one of the other members left as well.
In 1979, the act became a duo consisting of husband and wife Janos and Ilona Csikasz. They continued to perform together through at least the mid-1990s.
Ilona and Janos are now retired and living in Florida in the United States.
The three videos below show the Villams at different stages of their long career, showing the five person version, the three person version, and the final duo version.
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).