Great Salt Lake Mime Troupe Outline and Scrapbook

George Kugler at Barsham Fair -- Summer 1975
Johnny Melville writes: I first met Georgio in Barsham Fair, a medieval festival in England in 1975. I was performing at that festival with my group SALAKTA BALLOON BAND and on the first day there I noticed a large crowd enthusing round a juggler. Dressed in coloured overalls, he had beautifully long reddish-blond hair which bounced on his shoulders in roll-up locks which a baroque wig-maker would have been jealous of. He was doing something I had never seen before - juggling a cauliflower, an apple and a peanut. Now in those days juggling had not yet become a mass phenomenon like now, and I was used to seeing the typical street performer with 3 clubs and 3 balls.....but here was Georgio innovating with 3 different sizes and weights, eating the apple as he juggled and when he finished that off he flipped the peanut high in the air and caught it perfectly in his mouth, the cauliflower perching on his neck. Over those days he also adopted a festival-partner: a 6 year old princess whom he integrated into his show: it was utter charm and it was funny too.

Georgio takes a break at Barsham Fair in Suffolk, England enroute to the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

Johnny Melville writes:

George with the little girl who adopted him. Barsham was also a wonderful festival the like of which I haven't seen for a long time.
It was authentic as much as possible and anti-sponsor, anti-commercial.
Later George worked for a long time with Jack Millet doing contact impro stuff from like 1979 till 1990 more or less.
I organised a mini clown festival once in Frankfurt at Sinkkasten ... invited them there.
I even ran the Sinkkasten for 2 weeks when Marianne and Detlef went to Key West.
That was wild - real responsible I was !!!

Warwick Moreton writes:

I remember the Curiosity Box, it was great with the kids. Years later I saw a fabulous version from the Natural Theatre using a bath chair and three people as well as a small box.

A portion of an online conversation with Warwick: Curiosity box was just that, a small box that the performer ... referred to whilst performing. It held something surprising, hopefully marvelous, that only a couple of people could see at any one time ... as seen by the wider audience. Curiosity -- if there was a gasp of surprise all the better.
The Natural Theatre had a tiny speaking person in a box held in the lap of an invalid in a bath chair. You could ask questions and the tiny person would answer. But it could only be seen by three or four people. So the wider audience would become curiouser and curiouser as the inner audience reacted. A marvelous device for a walking street show.
Images courtesy of Warwick Moreton, slightly redigitized by M.E. Many thanks to Johnny and Warwick for their quotations.
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