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Aotearoa New Zealand Juggling & Circus Festival (29 March – 1 April)

We had booked our sea voyages long before we knew the dates for the Aotearoa New Zealand Juggling & Circus Festival, so it was a happy coincidence that everything lined up. Of course, once we knew they had, we immediately booked Festival tickets and one of the dorm rooms (most people camp, but we weren’t travelling with gear), and planned the rest of our visit to New Zealand around that.

For instance, given that we were in New Zealand from late summer well into fall, it would have made a lot of sense to start in the south and work our way northwards as the weather got cooler. But the Festival was to be held near Dunedin this year, and at the end of our time window, so we did it the other way around – which worked out just fine anyway.

The Festival venue was the Waiora Scout Camp, which is about half an hour outside Dunedin, well in the bush, along a twisty gravel road. Getting there could have been a pain, but the Festival organizer, Xanthe, set us up with a nice guy named Nate with a van, who picked us up at our apartment right around the time we had to check out anyway. Then, after picking up two other people (Nicole and Fluffy) and some bottles of milk for the cafe, we were on our way.

On arrival we checked in, got directions to our dorm room, and picked up some sleeping bags that Em’s father Jared had kindly loaned us. Then we dropped off our bags, got the room roughly set up, and headed out to enjoy.

And enjoy we did: we had a terrific time at the Festival, meeting people, juggling (Greg), swinging poi (Karen), enjoying the show, participating in the games (Greg) and eating great food in the cafe. What we didn’t do was take a lot of pictures – we were just too busy having fun! So rather than a day-by-day breakdown, we’ve organized this a bit more thematically, with words filling in for pictures where we don’t have them.

The site #

As mentioned, Waiora Scout Camp is out in the bush, and this is what the bush looks like around Dunedin.

Of course, being in the bush, there were critters everywhere. We think this is one of the species of Wākā.

The festival had three main venues: up the hill was the hall, which was a combination juggling space, self-service kitchen, and dormitory; downhill was the cafe and chill space, and the field with the marquee tent. This is the view from the hall, looking down the hill towards the field.

We didn’t actually get any pictures of the hall, but it’s where the club passers at the festival tended to congregate so it’s where we spent most of our time. Our dorm room was also in the hall, beside the main juggling space, and the toilets and showers were just behind it. Fortunately there was a “no juggling in the hall after 11pm” rule, otherwise we wouldn’t likely have got a lot of sleep. There was a small lounge in the hall, which was the only place with heat other than the cafe, so Karen spent a lot of her time hanging out there.

The marquee tent was where most of the workshops were held, as well as the main show and the renegade show. It did rain just a bit over the weekend, but most of the time it was fine and we were able to juggle outdoors. As you can see, it wasn’t warm: highs were in the 14ºC range, with nighttime lows around 9ºC. But we did have brilliant sunshine on the Saturday afternoon, which made the field warm enough for juggling in short sleeves.

This is the front porch of the Mills Mess Cafe, which served delicious and inexpensive vegan and vegetarian food during the Festival, along with well-made espresso-based coffee. It was run by a lovely woman named Adele, who normally works managing a cafe in Dunedin. The guy with the bird on his head is Fluffy; the bird is a trained dove belonging to Satori, the woman in the green coat at right.

The Festival #

This was the overall schedule for the Festival. As with most juggling Festival schedules it was more of a guideline than anything.

When we arrived at the festival one of the first people we spotted was Mark Williams, a juggler from Auckland that Greg follows on Instagram. We’d had tentative plans to meet up when we were in his city, but couldn’t find a time that worked for all of us. It was great to finally meet him.

Karen did get a bit of poi swinging in.

And there were a lot of poi swingers at the festival. This was a very well-attended poi juggling workshop, being taught by Timmehtek, the guy with the big pile of hair at the centre of the picture.

The people at the Festival were lovely and very welcoming – which has been our experience at every juggling festival we’ve ever attended, anywhere in the world. A few of them we knew previously from juggling festivals in North America and Europe, and a few we’d met in Raglan and Wellington, but most of them were new friends. One highlight was meeting the rest of Irene’s family (Irene had hosted us in Raglan): her husband Damian and her children Matthias and Artemis.

Greg spent most of the weekend passing clubs, which will be no surprise to anyone who knows him. Among other people he passed with Graham, Damian, Irene, Jonathan, Pascal, and Jo. He also helped Graham teach a couple of passing workshops.

The Circus Olympics #

We did get lots of pictures of the “Circus Olympics”, a set of serious-not-serious competitions that were held on the Sunday afternoon. Greg competed in a few of them and had a perfect record, winning none.

This was three-ball Simon Says, one of the few games where Greg actually has a chance – but he dropped on an easy trick and was out. Some people in the photo: Lisa Komatsubara, in the white sweatshirt, who we’d met at an International Jugglers’ Association festival a few years back; Mark Williams behind her; Sam from Wellington, in the blue; Pascal Häring from Switzerland, in the beige sweater and half obscured, who Greg first met at a PassOut in Colorado in 2014; and Kozo Komatsubara, aka Kozo Kaos, Lisa’s brother, in the black at the right.

Greg also entered club balancing, which he’s reasonably good at – but he can’t do some of the more advanced tricks. Beside Greg, borrowing one of Greg’s clubs, is Sam Malcolm from the USA. We had Sam co-host our local juggling Festival’s show one year; he was host for this Festival’s show as well. In the purple shirt is Matthias Goed, Irene and Damian’s son.

The final competition Greg entered was five ball endurance, in which his role is to give the eventual victor one more person to have beaten. At left is Jonathan Joly, a Texan who now works in Wellington and who we’d met years ago at an Austin Juggling Festival.

Poi juggling is reasonably new, and quite difficult, so it hasn’t normally been a juggling games staple. However, there were enough decent poi jugglers at this Festival to make a three poi endurance competition worth running. To no one’s surprise, Timmehtek won easily. That’s Fluffy on the right.

Greg didn’t enter five club endurance, but his clubs did: they’re the pink ones that Sam Malcolm is juggling. Lisa and Kozo are at left, and that’s Graham in the orange sweater.

There were also enough seven ball jugglers at the festival to make seven ball endurance worthwhile.

There was a handstand competition made extra difficult by the lumpy terrain. There was only one female competitor – the woman near centre with the blue hair and maroon shirt – and fittingly, she won.

After the games, we did the traditional big toss-up photo. Greg and his clubs are in there somewhere.

Farewells #

On the Monday morning we packed up, said our farewells, and got a ride back to the city with Graham. Then, after a bit of lunch, it was onto a bus and back to Christchurch, for an overnight stay before our flight back to Brisbane.

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