Annual Portland Juggling Festival

As we mark our fall and winter calendars with our favorite holidays, most of us think of Halloween or Thanksgiving but a few of us here in Portland, Oregon are marking down another important date the last weekend of September: the Annual Portland Juggling Festival. To those jugglers, clowns, and artists who attend, this weekend is just as special as October 31 or the fourth Thursday of November.

The Annual Portland Juggling Festival is a three day long festival celebrating juggling, clowning and other circus arts. Jugglers, clowns and all kinds of artists come together to celebrate their art, share their tricks and maybe even learn a new routine. People who just want to have fun and professionals alike gather at Reed College to play with their toys, both for the workshops that run all weekend long and for the shows. The shows include the sometimes risqué Renegade show late Friday night, and the all ages Juggling and Vaudeville Extravaganza on Saturday night.

The Portland Juggling Festival and the Portland Jugglers group were founded by Stuart Celarier, a Reed College graduate and professor who now runs the Portland Jugglers group every Wednesday night, which also serves as a PE course for Reed College students.

The Festival, which opens on Friday with the Renegade Adult show, runs through the weekend. The Juggling Vaudeville Extravaganza show on Saturday night is a showcase of clowning, juggling, and general circus arts which features artists from all over the country, and indeed, the world, as well as familiar faces from the Portland Juggling community such as Rhys Thomas, Curt Carlyle, and David “Leapin’ Louie” Lichtenstein.

“The Festival is always inspiring and whole lot of fun!” says Portland Juggler Maud Whalen, who has been regularly attending the Portland Jugglers Wednesday night gathering and the Portland Juggling Festival since she started juggling three years ago.

This year, the Festival runs from Friday, September 30th through October 2nd.