Shoebox Tour Information

UPDATE: Tour dates are announced, all in August. Check the website for details. Also, see if you can spot the extra secret leak somewhere on the shoebox site ;-).

'Round here, we used to report juggling news. Let's do that.

Last year, I traveled with another JOG writer, Brian Gadomski, to Ohio so we could catch Jay Gilligan, Marcus Monroe and Erik Aberg at a stop on their Shoebox tour. I'm really glad I did, because it was a great show and I had a really fun time hanging out with all of the performers, what great guys they are. The time has come for Shoebox to restart its tour once again.

Gathering information from Jay and his MySpace page, this is what I know so far. First of all, the website will be up soon and is featured as a link in this article. As an interesting little side note, Anthony Gatto (yes, THE Anthony Gatto) did the web design for the site. Moving on to actual confirmed information. Check your maps kiddies, because here is the list of major/minor cities the tour is making stops at:

Milwaukee, WI
Madison, WI
Chicago, IL
Indianapolis, IN
Detroit, MI
Toronto, Ontario
Montreal, Quebec
New York, NY
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Toledo, OH

Next order of business, guest jugglers. Last year, Erik Aberg was the special guest who came from outside the states. Jouni Temonin was supposed to be on the tour also, but we can all recall that border-crossing fiasco involving an expired visa and some worry about defecting. This year, Shoebox is proud to announce their full lineup of guest jugglers:

Jay Gilligan
Erik Aberg
Marcus Monroe
Mirja Jauhiainen
Komei Aoki
Masaki Hirano

You read that right... Komei and Masaki are on the tour baby! Strap your face on, because it's sure to get rocked off by some technical ball work and crazy good prop manipulations. I tried googling Mirja for some information, but all that came up was some journal papers from heart doctors. I don't know what a heart doctor would be doing on the tour, so I'll just assume Mirja is going to be a great juggler nobody knows anything about... yet!

So you must be thinking Shoebox is going to be an amazing show with lots of talented jugglers in it... but it is so much more than that. Jay said to me in his message "We're trying to make the event more value added than just a show. Trying to get more people out to see it and have it become an event where if you miss it, you don't just miss seeing a cool show, you also miss learning something new to use in your own juggling". Shoebox is not going to be ONLY a show, it's also going to have a workshop component, where the leaders guarantee you are going to learn TEN new juggling tricks to impress your friends with. The guys putting this together really want to let you get the most bang for your buck and I feel like we should reward them for their efforts by taking ourselves and a carload of people to see their show.

One last thing to mention. None of these guys are going to IJA this year, or any festivals for that matter, so your only chance to see them is going to be on the Shoebox tour. Keep checking for updates about actual dates when they will be in each city and be sure to help support your fellow juggler. I know I'm going to see Shoebox Tour 2007 - Secrets Revealed!