Ground Acts Index
Juggling
Juggling Information Service
Perch Pole
The perch pole act consists of several variations including the balancing perch pole and the swing pole. For swing pole, one man holds up a steel pole about twenty feet long as his partner climbs to the top. After she fastens herself to the top of the pole with a neck loop, he spins the pole around as fast as possible until she is swinging out almost parallel to the ground. The balancing perch pole consists of a tall steel pole about 25 feet high and weighing about 50 pounds with interchangeable top and bottom pieces, which are designed for variations of the act. The standard bottom piece is designed for a man to balance the pole on his shoulders and contains grips for holding the pole with his hands, while a substitute bottom piece may be used for a performer who wishes to balance the pole on his head. Each perch pole has a loop at the top into which the girl may insert either a hand or a foot in order to perform a variety of tricks while hanging down from the loop. Usual tricks include standouts, in which the girl braces both feet against the pole and stands out sideways from the pole, and leg drops, in which the girl braces her hands against the pole while hanging from one foot, then lowers her other leg out straight behind her. Arabesques, headstands and leg lifts are performed by balancing at the top of the pole without using any loops. During the whole routine, the man at the bottom must balance the pole as she shifts her weight from one position to another, climbs up and down and balances at the top.
Quartette
Quartette adagio is another act which fosters teamwork between circus
newcomers and oldtimers alike. It requires three strong men and one small
and flexible woman. The main portion of the act consists of the men
throwing the girl into the air and catching her after she completes her
trick. Men are often combined into a quartette team to teach them timing
and coordination while increasing their muscular development. Women are
added to the teams to foster their confidence in trusting others to catch
them when they are flying through the air and to develop the quickness,
limberness, and coordination required to perform more complex acts such as
the cradle acts and flying. Quartette is an act in which the three men are
totally responsible for the woman's safety. There are no safety nets or
lines in quartette and when she goes high in the air, the men must catch
her when she comes down to avoid some painful injuries if she hits the
ground. One highlight of the act is the straight pitch, when the men try
to throw the girl as high into the air as possible, then catch her as she
falls back down. Another is "jump rope" a trick in which two men swing the
girl around like a jump rope while the third jumps over her at the bottom
of the swing. Timing is especially crucial here.
Sky Pole
The sky pole was first performed by a team consisting of Don Cross, Doug Mishler and Ellen Hamilton in 1969. The sky pole itself is a flexible fiberglass pole about eight feet in length. The two catchers on the team each hold one end of the pole while the woman acrobat balances in the center between them. The act is similar to the routines seen on a balance beam in gymnastics but differs in that the pole is only two inches wide instead of four and is moveable by the catchers rather than fixed in one place. In the beginning portion of the act, the sky pole girl performs balancing tricks such as handstand splits, arabesques, and leg lifts as her partners hold the pole steady. In the acrobatic portion, the two men throw their partner into the air as she performs layouts, backwards and forward-somersaults and other similar tricks, either landing on the pole with her feet or catching it with her hands. The catchers must first raise the pole as high as possible above their heads, then drop their hands down as far as possible to get the maximum thrust to catapult her high enough to do her tricks. On a good throw, the pole may bend down as much as two feet in the center as maximum power is applied.
Unicycle
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JIS Slackrope
Wire Acts
There are three types of wire acts: the high wire, the tightwire or
tightrope and the slack wire or slack rope. There are considerable
differences between the high wire and the other two wire acts. Slack wire
and tightrope artists may be considered the low wire acts since the
performers work on thin wires, usually less than half an inch in width,
rigged 6-15 feet above the ground between two triangular standards or
small pedestal boards. High wire walkers perform on a thick cable, usually
an inch or more in diameter, that is usually rigged between two pedestals
mounted on large poles 20 or more feet in height. While high wire artists
may have a net or safety lines, these safety features are not used for
tightrope or slack wire. A slack wire or tightrope artist can usually jump
to the ground from his wire if he finds himself falling while a high wire
artist must be able to catch on to the wire or fall safely into the net
while avoiding any falling equipment. Slack wire and tightrope are
basically one-man acts. Juggling is a feature of the low wire acts since
the performers don't have to use their hands to hold the large balance
poles used on high wire.
High Wire
High wire walkers balance by shifting the weight of large balance poles.
The weight of the pole is shifted from side to side, not up and down, to
maintain balance. Poles range in size from 40 to 70 pounds depending on
the physical size and personal prefer ence of the performers. High wire
artists must maintain a rigid posture with their backs erect and their
bodies held as straight as possible. When the walker pushes against the
pole, his entire body balances against the push to maintain his position
on the wire. The worst thing a high wire walker can do is to try to
balance with his hips since that negates any help from the balance pole.
0n the other hand, slack wire and tightrope artists must balance by
contorting their own bodies to keep their center of gravity over the
center of the wire. Different walkers use different techniques with some
performers using one leg as a counterbalance, others wiggling their hips
to maintain balance and others moving their arms to change their center of
balance. 0n the high wire, several performers usually combine their
talents to build pyramids on the wire or complete other tricks involving
two or more performers. Bicycles, unicycles, chairs and other apparatus
are frequently used to show the performers ability to cross the wire or
balance without having their feet touching the high wire itself.
Slack wire tricks differ substantially from person to person although each
performer is expected to have balancing, juggling and wire walking tricks
in the routine. Good jugglers have routines which stress their skills by
juggling clubs, rings, tennis rackets and fire torches. An excellent
juggler will throw objects behind his back or under one leg or juggle more
than three objects. Good balancers use props such as ladders or boards to
stand on while balancing on the wire or spin several rings on th eir arms
while spinning another on the wire with a foot. An excellent slack wire
artist will try to do two things at once such as juggling while standing
on a board balanced on the wire or spinning rings on one arm while he
climbs a ladder. If he's spinning two rings and has reached the second
rung of a ladder, that performer is hot. Performers with a good feel of
the wire may walk backwards up the slope towards the standards, turn
around on the wire, or balance sideways on the wire. Occasionally a
performer will expand his act to include other performers by juggling to
his partner on the ground or to another slack wire artist on a different
wire. 0n one occasion, two wire walkers walked from end to end of
different wires while swinging a third performer on a cloth rope between
them.
Slack Wire
