Behind the Curtain and the Crowd

Jugheads Youth Juggling Co. is an after-school juggling program that kids from grades three through twelve participate in. There is a club everyday after school, each one being a certain skill level and age group. For instance, Elite Club on Tuesday afternoons and if one wishes to be an Elite member, they must be able to achieve certain juggling standards, such as five balls to 50 catches and 100 throws with six club passing. The most prestigious club is the Ultimate Club, in which you will find the best of the best Jugheads. For most of the school year, each club comes up with an original theme with which to develop a 7 to 8 minute routine or act in JuggleJam, which is the climax of every Jughead's year. For JuggleJam 10 last May, the Wednesday Rec. Club used the theme of Pixar and Disney movies. It might seem excessive to spend the better part of the school year for each club to work on only eight minutes of the show, but as of Fall '08, there are 146 members of Jugheads. You try getting that many kids to stand still for eight minutes, let alone choreograph an intricate juggling routine! Along with these group routines, there are what we call Specialty Acts. These routines are put together by any number of Jugheads that want to create a routine on their own and perform it in JuggleJam. The most common forms of these acts are solos or duets. It is a very competitive process to be accepted into a JuggleJam with a Specialty Act, because each act must tryout and by accepted by a panel of judges. With so much work put into only one two and a half hour show, a JuggleJam is without a doubt the best taste of true juggling that most people would ever see in their lives.