When you picture ideal juggling props, furniture probably doesn’t pop into your head right away. And yet chairs and other furniture have long been used by jugglers to amaze audiences. Chairs have been balanced by many jugglers to great effect, but toss juggling with them is much more rare.
Chair Balancing
Let’s take a look at examples of jugglers using chairs to toss juggle.
A Chair, a Table, and a Newspaper
The very difficult juggling combination of a table, a chair, and a newspaper on a stick appears to have been quite popular. My research points to the trick being invented by either the famed gentleman juggler Kara or his close friend and rival Salerno. You can see photos of each performing it below. The second one, featuring Salerno, is courtesy of Steve Rawlings.
Kara
Salerno
Another Gentleman juggler of the era that demonstrated this trick was Roberto Paulius.
Roberto Paulius
In addition to Kara, Salerno, and Paulius, you can see that the famous restaurant jugglers the Perezoffs had a member who performed this feat. The poster below shows him adding in a fourth object, a vase full of flowers. I’m going to assume the addition of the vase to be an artist’s imagination.
The gentleman juggler Cancowsci (real name Jakub Kankowski) was a Polish juggler who was born in 1870 and died in 1963 in the small town of Brok in Eastern Poland. He specialized in these odd mixes of objects and included the table chair, and newspaper in his act.
Cancowski
Another gentleman juggler who performed this trick was Mr. Kelly. You can see an illustration of him doing it below.
Mr. Kelly
Finally, it was performed by the artist known as Edy.
Edy
Two Chairs and One Small Table
Another popular combination was the juggling of two chairs and a small table.
The Agoust Troupe were the second act to perform what we call Restaurant Juggling, which you can read about by clicking here. As you can see in the following video, one of the members of the troupe juggled chairs quite skillfully.
The Ramblers was a copycat act of the Agousts and also included chair and furniture juggling in their act.
The Ramblers
The Onri Troupe, led by Archie Onri, specialized in restaurant juggling, devil sticks, and hand bell juggling, with the latter two often performed on rolling globes. They also included the juggling of two chairs and a table.
The Onri Troupe
Strongman juggler Paul Spadoni did more than just juggle cannon balls and artillery shells. He also juggled chairs! Click here to read more about Spadoni.
Paul Spadoni
Will Hanvaar was a British juggler born in 1874. While he is best remembered as one of the first, if not the first, juggler to perform 5 clubs, he also demonstrated chair juggling, as you can see below.
Will Hanvarr
Other Versions of Chair Juggling
The Perezoffs also apparently included the juggling of a chair, table, and lamp in their act at one point.
The Perezoff Troupe
In the 1910s, Lucy Gillet juggled three chairs in her act.
Lucy Gillet
Chinko was a popular juggler of the early twentieth century. One of his best-known tricks was juggling three clubs and a stool. Click here to learn more about Chinko.
Chinko
Chinko
The obscure juggler Frego juggled the difficult combination of a chair, table, and umbrella.
Frego
The Cromwells apparently utilized a chair in their act, although I doubt Mrs. Cromwell juggled a chair, table, and her husband, as pictured below.
The Cromwells
The juggling of three chairs was included in the book Juggling Secrets by Will Goldston, which was published in 1911 in by G. Routledge and Sons of London. Below is an illustration from the book.
Image from Juggling Secrets
British juggling star Steve Rawlings juggles a chair, table, and vase of flowers in his act currently.
Steve Rawlings
Dan Foley has received a lot of exposure for his flaming lawn chair juggle, which you can see below.
Possibly the easiest type of chairs to juggle would be bean bag chairs. Check out the Truly Remarkable Loon juggling three of them below.
Click here to see Gil Zirlin juggle three large plastic chairs.
Gil Zirlin
Jon Udry has done some research on incorporating a chair with ball juggling, including toss juggling the chair with two balls at the end of the following video.
There are still many possibilities of incorporating a chair into toss juggling. Feel free to send me anything you come up with.
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).