If you are interested in Australian Juggling History try reading my book What Goes Up.
Juggling in Australia began as a part of circus performance,
and circus arrived in Australia around 1842.
According to newspaper reports, many of the early equestrian performers
had juggling as part of their act. For example, Mark St Leon in Circus the
Australian Story, describes Indigenous circus man, Billy Jones, as a
juggler. But Jones was also an equestrian, tightrope walker and acrobat.
Juggling in Australia, was, presumably a part of other circus acts, but rarely
a stand alone performance.
Juggling in the past was considered an odd, sometimes evil,
occupation. Most 19th century stories of juggling in Australian newspapers were
about Indian jugglers. Juggling was often identified as an occupation
associated with the mystery and 'otherness', of the east. It was cast in the
language of what post modernist author, Edward Said described as 'Orientalism', a political vision of
reality whose structure promoted the difference between the familiar (Europe,
West, "us") and the strange (the Orient, the East, "them"). (Edward
Said, Orientalism)
The most famous exploiter of Orientalism in the early theatre was American magician Chung Ling Soo (William Robinson) Above is his very Anglo American assistant Dot dressed as Suee Seen.
Early
jugglers, employed by circus entrepreneurs, used this pervasive ideology and
narrative to promote Indian jugglers in their circuses. A little later in the
1860s, with the opening of Japan to the west, early popular theatre owners
capitalised on a similar view of juggling.
An
example of the circus exploitation of
orientalism, is the case of brothers Mahomet Cassim and Mahomet
Abdallah. Advertised by Burton's circus as being from the court of a Rajah,
their props and acrobatic performances capitalised on the exotic nature of
their origins. Their subsequent execution for murder of their compatriot on the
basis on little evidence, is an example of how pervasive the 'orientalist' idea
of the 'evil' east, was in the 1860s.
Juggling
in the late 19th and early 20th Century
Charles
Waller is perhaps the only person in Australia to make a contemporaneous
attempt to document juggling in Australian popular theatres in the late 19th
and early 20th centuries. Waller
( and I
know some jugglers will not like this) was a magician. In 1941 he attempted to
list every magician who had visited Australia and describe their performance.
This quickly grew to a project which included jugglers, protean artists and ventriloquists.
Waller came to Melbourne in 1895 and his
accounts of performances from that date rely on personal recollections. After
his death, his work was passed to Charles Wicks who in turn passed it on to
Gerald Taylor who turned it into a book called Magical Nights at the
Theatre. All three were magicians and members of the Australian Society of
Magicians, and it is thanks to them that there are some eyewitness accounts of
early jugglers in Australia.
According
to Waller some of the first jugglers to perform on an Australian stage were
Japanese. He says that The Tycoon
troupe, a group of Japanese jugglers and acrobats performed in Melbourne in
November 11 1867. Not only were they possibly the first juggling act to perform
on an Australian stage, they were also one of the first group of Japanese
entertainers to perform outside Japan.
The
juggler in this troupe was named Herconuske, he performed sword balancing and
brick manipulations. However, the main attraction of the troupe was top
spinning . The whole performance was framed with a broken English explanation
of Japanese customs, including a discussion of the quality of tea. This framing focused once again on an orientalist idea of the mystic east.
Other
Japanese troupes followed through the late 1860s and early 1870s.
The
late 1880s saw the arrival of Clark's all star American speciality group and
its associated juggling performers. These included Japanese jugglers, and Sylvo,
a balancer and juggler.
He used goblets, umbrellas and other common objects, balanced them and
rearranged them in startling rapidity. Sylvo's performance clearly showed the
influence of the great French performer Trewey, and introduced a European
influence into the art of juggling in Australia.
Of
course the most influential juggler in early 20th century Australia was Cinquevalli. It was he who firmly
established juggling as a popular theatrical art in this country. Cinquevalli
made four trips to Australia and at one stage considered settling here.
His
first performance was in 1899, he dressed in traditional circus attire, silken
tights, and juggled common objects.
Cinquevalli
juggled salt and pepper, tea cups, tea pots and sugar. His juggling always had
a clever denouement. He would juggle the
tea items and end up pouring a cup of tea, or he would juggle a knife, fork and
potato and halve the potato as it fell. Of course his billiard ball trick was a
long time favourite with Australian audiences.
Cinquevalli
introduced an everyday flavour to the art of juggling. He once said that he
hoped that an audience member, after witnessing his performance, would go home
and try to juggle the kitchen utensils. Cinquevalli was a juggling evangelist,
and one of the first people to introduce common object juggling to the
Australian populace. ( he is also my
hero)
After
Cinquevalli came a wave of 'drawing room' jugglers and the early 20th century
can be seen as the high point of vaudeville juggling in Australia. W C Fields
arrived with his silent tramp act. Selma Bratz and Lucy Gillet also toured in
the early 20th century.
In
the wake of Cinquevalli's successful and profitable appearance, juggling became
a popular feature for the managers of the large variety halls such as the Tivoli
and National Amphitheatre in Sydney. Australian jugglers were given more
opportunities to show their skill on the stage and become regulars on the
bigger circuits. It was at this time
that the Kavanagh boys( rackets and hoops)
made their first appearances at the Tivoli (1911) and the Lentons (hat
jugglers) also made their first appearance.
Another
form of juggling rose simultaneously, club juggling. This originated from the Indian
club swinging movement of the late Victorian era. Australians were apparently
very keen on this form of exercise. Famous Australian bush poet, Henry Lawson, was an exponent, and the world champion of the sport was also Australian. The
national obsession with sport and competition undoubtedly influenced the
popularity of club swinging and perhaps the sporting aspect also influenced
some of the early club jugglers in Australia.
One
of the first Australian club juggling acts was Lennon, Hyman and Lennon who
appeared in the Sinbad the Sailor pantomime in 1906. After a long career as jugglers, the Lennons
became theatre entrepreneurs in Adelaide. Ted Lennon established one of
Adelaide's first cinemas, and his showings of silent movies were interspersed
with vaudeville acts, which presumably would have included some club juggling.
In
the 1920s one of the most famous club juggling acts was the Littlejohns, who
juggled patented 'diamond studded' clubs and were well known in the famous
variety halls. They also toured independently in regional areas and their
itinerant shows brought juggling to a wider audience.
With
the advent of the talkies, juggling, as
with other vaudeville and circus arts, fell into decline. But it was a large part of the Australian popular theatrical experience for a very long time and of course continues to be enjoyed by many (strange, odd, eccentric and mathematical) people today.
And if you're interested in present day practitioners of this strange hobby you might like to look at Sydney Juggling
