The annual University of Waterloo juggling festival takes place this weekend from March 15 to 17.
The weekend is divided into two separate events in the actual festival featuring workshops and a gala event on Saturday night.
The festival will get underway on Friday night at 7 p.m. at the Physical Athletics Complex (PAC) at the University of Waterloo and it begins again on Saturday at 11 a.m. in the Student Life Centre until the gala show at 7:30 p.m. in the Modern Languages Theatre of the Arts.
Finally, the festivities conclude on Sunday with the festival beginning at 10 a.m. and ending at 4 p.m. in the Student Life Centre.
“This event actually started 27 years ago. We’ve recently been trying to make it a bigger event where we draw in world class jugglers so that we can have a really good show that we put on for the community. There’s a lot that goes into how we contact the jugglers because our budget is small,” Cassy Wiens, an organizer for the juggling festival, said.
“So that means that we have to offer something more than money so we do our best to offer accommodations and publicity. This year we’ve got someone who has made the top 40 jugglers [list], we’ve got a magician who has worked at the national circus school.”
“A lot of the people on the organizing committee look at juggling being used to create a community and we believe that there’s a strong community around it. “
Although there are plenty of world class jugglers headlining the festival, the festival will also feature some local Waterloo talent.
“We market the new festival as two separate events. The festival part includes a bunch of jugglers and people sharing ideas and their creative process. How they juggle, learning new tricks, things like that.”
“We also offer a number of workshops. A lot of jugglers just want to teach so when people are out and want to juggle, you’re going to find someone in that room who is more than happy to teach,” Wiens said.
There will be numerous workshops featured at the festival which offer something from everyone.
“They are quite a diverse set of workshops. This year we have a magic workshop, two-person juggling creation, workshops that go beyond basic juggling, and more. The show which takes place at night is where you sit down and watch a performance.”
Aside from entertainment, the major goal of the festival is just to create a sense of community and togetherness around juggling.
“A lot of the people on the organizing committee look at juggling being used to create a community and we believe that there’s a strong community around it. “
“It’s something that promotes healthy living as well as interacting with people and creating relationships. In that sense, we want to promote juggling as a hobby,” Wiens added.
