{"id":5460,"date":"2013-01-14T08:36:49","date_gmt":"2013-01-14T16:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=5460"},"modified":"2013-01-15T10:03:11","modified_gmt":"2013-01-15T18:03:11","slug":"juggling-fest-teaches-the-art-of-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/01\/14\/juggling-fest-teaches-the-art-of-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Juggling fest teaches the art of play"},"content":{"rendered":"

For those who\u2019ve dreamed of running away with the circus, performing magnificent feats with hoops and fire, and delighting awestruck audiences around the world, the Victoria Juggle and Flow Festival will light the way.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s festival is the seventh of its kind and features performances by some of the West Coast\u2019s greatest ground-level circus performers and the famous Komei Aoki from Japan. It also offers a unique opportunity to network and learn through over 40 workshops ranging from \u201cBusking 101\u201d to \u201cSpinning Prop Movement Theory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dawn Monette is a member of the UVic Juggling Club and the driving force behind this year\u2019s festival. Monette\u2019s passion for juggling began when, as a child, she saw her older brother practising and asked him to teach her the tricks.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe blew me off, so I stole his balls and his book and was determined to learn on my own,\u201d says Monette. Her brother soon lost interest in the hobby, but for Monette, juggling became a way of life. \u201cIt ended up being something that I really loved doing,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople kept asking me to perform and all of a sudden I didn\u2019t have time for anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Dawn Monette showcases some of her juggling abilities (photo by Pierre Dubeau).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Monette has since forged a successful career as a juggler and street performer, making enough to avoid student loans while getting her education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve returned to school this year to finish my degree and I managed to pay for my tuition with the busking money I had made in the summer,\u201d says Monette.<\/p>\n

Through getting her degree in social work, Monette hopes to channel her performance skills into helping the less fortunate. \u201cI want to work healing people through joy and play and inspiration,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

This vision was born from Monette\u2019s stint with Spark Circus, a project operating in war-torn areas of Thailand, visiting local schools, performing, and giving toys to the many orphaned and displaced children.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really saw the importance of play at these schools. They\u2019re so happy that you\u2019re there and to have these toys,\u201d says Monette. \u201cI got to go back a second year and see how they played with the toys that they\u2019d gotten and how much it enriched their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for why performance skills like juggling and spinning poi have a powerful effect on an audience, Monette says it\u2019s about testing the boundaries of human skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo display the abilities of humans is inspiring and reminds us what we are capable of even in times of darkness,\u201d she says. \u201cWe\u2019re answering these questions of \u2018what am I capable of and how do I make that look beautiful, graceful and easy?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For those who\u2019ve dreamed of running away with the circus, performing magnificent feats with hoops and fire, and delighting awestruck audiences around the world, the Victoria Juggle and Flow Festival will light the way. This year\u2019s festival is the seventh of its kind and features performances by some of the West Coast\u2019s greatest ground-level circus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":5618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","category-january-9-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5460"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5620,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5460\/revisions\/5620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}