Jason Garfield (born August 9, 1974) is a juggler and entertainer from Norfolk, Connecticut, United States. [1] He is the founder and president of the World Juggling Federation (WJF).
Jason Garfield has been producing events since 2004, eleven of which in Las Vegas, and several across the country and one in the U.K. Jason learned to juggle at age 11 in 1986 and quickly established himself as one of the best and most controversial jugglers of his time.
Disappointed with the opportunities for competitive jugglers, Jason formed the World Juggling Federation in 2003 and produced his first sport juggling convention at the Riviera Hotel in December of 2004 where he also produced seven sport juggling competition programs for ESPN.
10 years later Jason founded SkillCon, hosting 20+ unique skill events. Jason, the World Juggling Federation, the Moxie Games, and SkillCon return to downtown Las Vegas in 2019 at the Plaza Hotel and Container Park.
Garfield was featured on ESPN Classic's show Cheap Seats where he was humorously depicted as a psychotic egomaniac who talked to the props he used while performing and proceeded to blame them for mistakes made during the act, a character he deliberately portrayed to add entertainment value to the program. [2]
Jason has received the following juggling awards:
Juggling is a physical skill, performed by a juggler, involving the manipulation of objects for recreation, entertainment, art or sport. The most recognizable form of juggling is toss juggling. Juggling can be the manipulation of one object or many objects at the same time, most often using one or two hands but other body parts as well, like feet or head. Jugglers often refer to the objects they juggle as props. The most common props are balls, clubs, or rings. Some jugglers use more dramatic objects such as knives, fire torches or chainsaws. The term juggling can also commonly refer to other prop-based manipulation skills, such as diabolo, plate spinning, devil sticks, poi, cigar boxes, contact juggling, hooping, yo-yo, hat manipulation and kick-ups.
Contact juggling is a form of object manipulation that focuses on the movement of objects such as balls in contact with the body. Although often used in conjunction with "toss juggling", it differs in that it involves the rolling of one or more objects without releasing them into the air.
Thomas Dietz is a professional juggler from Regensburg, Germany. He is recognized as one of the greatest technical jugglers in the world. He holds various unofficial juggling records and also the five club juggling world record of 53 minutes and 21 seconds. However, he gained most of his popularity through several juggling videos featuring his highly technical tricks including siteswap variations, pirouettes, and long runs of numbers with clubs, balls, and sometimes rings.
Toss juggling is the form of juggling which is most recognisable as 'juggling'. Toss juggling can be used as: a performing art, a sport, a form of exercise, as meditation, a recreational pursuit or hobby.
Vladimir, known as Vova, and Olga Galchenko were a brother and sister juggling team originally from Russia, active from approximately 2001 to 2009. They specialized in club juggling, particularly technical solo juggling, technical club passing and numbers club passing.
Anthony Gatto is an American juggler who holds several juggling world records. He began performing in Las Vegas at the age of ten.
Many countries, cities or juggling clubs hold their own annual juggling convention or juggling festivals. These are the backbone of the juggling scene, the events that regularly bring jugglers from a wide area together to socialize. The attendance of a convention can be anything from a few dozen to a few thousand people.
Since the late 1980s, a large juggling culture has developed, revolving around local clubs and organizations, special events, shows, magazines, video sharing websites, Internet forums, juggling competitions and juggling conventions. Populating the scene are many juggling celebrities who are notable for being good or creative jugglers, entertaining performers, convention organizers, experts in their field, having a strong presence online or just for having an interesting personality, character or style.
When you pulled out three balls in 1973, what was going through people's minds was, 'I saw a deformed midget do that once.' But when you pulled out three balls in the '80s, it was, 'a guy in my dorm room used to do that.'
The European Juggling Convention (EJC), is the largest juggling convention in the world, regularly attracting several thousand participants. It is held every year in a different European country. It is organised by changing local organisation committees which are supported by the European Juggling Association (EJA), a non-profit association founded in 1987 in Saintes, France. Like most juggling conventions, it features a mix of workshops for jugglers, a "renegade" performance performed for participants, games, performances and a public show, usually spread out over a period of a week in the European summer. Accommodation is usually in the form of tents provided by participants.
Joggling is a competitive sport that combines juggling with jogging. People who joggle are called jogglers.
Competitive or sport juggling is a sport in which people juggle in competition with others. Since 1969, the International Jugglers' Association (IJA) has held annual stage championships, judged both on technique and presentation. The stage championships have three categories: Individuals, Teams and Juniors. First, second and third-place winners in the Stage Championships are awarded medals and cash prizes.
Albert Lucas is an American juggler born in 1960 to Albert and Yvonne Moreira. He is notable for juggling while ice skating, setting numbers juggling records, and promoting sport juggling.
The World Juggling Federation (WJF) is the world's only organization devoted to the promotion and advancement of juggling as a sport.
The International Jugglers' Association or IJA is the world's oldest and largest nonprofit circus organization, and is open to members worldwide. It was founded in the United States in 1947, with the goal of providing, "an organization for jugglers that would provide meetings at regular intervals in an atmosphere of mutual friendship." Although its focus lies on juggling, its programs also support other circus disciplines.
Bruce Sarafian is an American juggler and unicyclist from Florida. He performs in venues such as theme parks, festivals, fairs and also for corporate clients. He began juggling at the age of 10. In 2007 he started and now operates a custom used classic jeep dealership in Central Florida, which has become one of the nation's largest, called EZJeeps.com In 2018 his jeep dealership was renamed EZCustom4x4.com
Dan Bennett is an American comedian and juggler who has been on numerous TV shows as well as in TV commercials in the U.S. He currently resides in Arizona and performs Corporate Entertainment for clients such as McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Novell, Quaker Oats, and Nu Skin. He specializes in a focused mix of physical comedy that is applied to the business terms and problems of his corporate clients. Dan Bennett has a doctorate in Mathematics and was a calculus instructor for a time.
Steve Mills was an American juggler and unicyclist from Morristown, New Jersey. He was the inventor of the "Mills' Mess" juggling pattern. Mills was taught to juggle by Ron Graham, a juggler and mathematician.
Niels Duinker born 9 August 1985 in Rotterdam) is a professional comedy juggler from the Netherlands. Niels holds 3 Guinness World Records and got awarded "Variety Act of the Year" by the IMS. Niels started juggling at the age of 12 in Rotterdam. Between the age of 13 and 17 he has been a member of the youth circus "Circus Rotjeknor" in Rotterdam.
Thom Wall is an American juggler and variety entertainer from Saint Louis, Missouri, USA. NPR has called him "one of the world's most notable jugglers."