European Juggling Convention 2011

August 9, 2011 9:54 AM

The 34th European Juggling Convention is currently taking place in Munich.

The EJC is the world's largest juggling convention and has been held in a different city each year since 1978 (some highlight and participant videos from previous years - 2006 Millstreet; 2007 Athens; 2008 Karlsruhe; 2009 Vitoria/Gasteiz; 2010 Joensuu - and many more).

Organized by the European Juggling Association, this year's convention (Promo video, Staffer Warmup video) has attracted more than 6000 jugglers, most accommodated in a tent city in Munich's Olympic Park. Apart from juggling, shows, events and workshops include a nightly open stage, a yo-yo jam, clowning, acrobatics, unicycling, fire-twirling, slacklining, and all-in opening and closing parades.

Streaming video is available at jugglinglive.com. Photos, (a) video and an event guide are also available on EJC 2011's facebook page.

Additional non-convention juggling related resources (including more than 13000 videos) can be found at The Internet Juggling Database. More juggling videos can be found at Juggling.tv

posted by Ahab (7 comments total)

If your a glutton for punishment you might also check out the live feed of Rumpel the Kangaroo Fool of Oz, who is currently making an attempt on the world record for longest ever non-stop stageshow.
posted by Ahab at 9:55 AM on August 9, 2011

I was going to go but with personal stuff, work duties, and the new puppy, I just couldn't keep all the balls in the air.
posted by kmz at 10:03 AM on August 9, 2011

I want to see a juggling show where the performer is a new parent, attends night school, and volunteers weekly at a homeless shelter.
posted by ceribus peribus at 10:20 AM on August 9, 2011

Cut away to a slightly chunky 15 year-old Danish kid in black & white face-paint walking away despondently.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:30 AM on August 9, 2011 [1 favorite]

And in ~related~ news, the 2011 Gathering of the Juggalos starts on Thursday.
posted by norm at 10:36 AM on August 9, 2011

Different kind of multi-ball juggling taking place this weekend near Pittsburgh, PA
posted by HappyHippo at 11:13 AM on August 9, 2011

Did any other Mefites go to ELC this year?

I have mild tendonitis in several fingers from juggling too much, scrapes and bruises from a couple of minor unicycle-related incidents and now can't stop trying to manipulate siteswaps and causal diagrams in my head. On the upside, I got to catch up with a load of old friends, meet and juggle with a load of new ones, learn a lot of great new stuff and generally spend a lot of time doing silly things with interesting -- and in some cases mindblowingly skillful -- people.

The convention definitely wasn't without its problems, mostly due to the olympic park authorities suddenly changing rules (one of which left us with 16 showers for 7,000 people) and the local police treating us with a great deal of suspicion (lots of plain clothes coppers and at least one camera drone flying over the main site), which spoiled the atmosphere a bit. On the whole though, it went really well. It was my first EJC, and I had a great time.

One thing that really struck me was the gender balance among the different skills. In the UK conventions I've been to, the women have tended to stick to the artier, more dance-like end of circus, e.g. poi and staff spinning, hula hoop, aerial silks. There are certainly women who actually juggle and do some interesting technical stuff (numbers, fun siteswaps, complex passing patterns), but they're a tiny proportion of the visible community. By comparison, at the EJC I'd guess that about a third of the jugglers I saw getting up to that stuff were female. Still not parity, but a massive leap. The ones I spoke to mostly seemed to be from Germany, so maybe the German juggling community has a dramatically better balance than I'm used to in the UK?
posted by metaBugs at 8:54 AM on August 15, 2011 [1 favorite]