Decatur juggler happy to teach tricks for free

This article was originally published on 2/1/2007

Between a full-time job and AmEx bills, who isn’t a juggler these days?

Throw in a toddler or two, and you’ve got your own Cirque du Soleil.

Yet, David Montane is a real star.

No, he’s not particularly better than you when it comes to balancing life. But he is one of the supreme jugglers in metro Atlanta.

How else could he charge between $150 to $200 an hour to appear at your trade show or bar mitzvah?

Montane is a modern jester. Once a full-time gig for the 46-year-old Decatur man, the talent is still a chunk of joy, the “ka-ching” kind.

Whom did IKEA call for its grand opening? Or a certain metro Atlanta newspaper that hosts a mega car show every year?

These days, Montane teaches juggling practically at no cost —- to anyone with free mornings.

Three times a week in downtown Decatur, he’s at the studio of the Several Dancers Core. “Juggle Dance” is the class.

Not many show up because regular 9-to-5 worker bees are busy juggling clients, office politics and endless “management” memos.

Yet, there Montane was last week, with a gym bag full of translucent scarves and colorful balls.

“What keeps me motivated?” he asked rhetorically. “To keep in shape.”

After two years of juggling to the rhythms of Gnarls Barkley or Ray Charles, he’s now 195 pounds in a 6-foot frame; his belly shrank quite a bit, too.

In this Shakespearean artistry, concentration is everything. Empty your mind. Embrace tranquility. Hear the voice of Pat Morita, the sage sensei for Ralph Macchio in the “Karate Kid” films.

“It’s a ‘wax-on, wax-off’ motion, ” Montane said.

Born and raised in Northern California, Montane picked up juggling in 1979 by happenstance. His teacher was a high school classmate who had a crush on Montane’s sister.

The boy —- a juggling champion —- came by Montane’s house to pick up the girl, but she was running late from another date and hadn’t arrived yet. Like a good brother, Montane kept the guest busy by getting the boy to teach him juggling.

Montane got a bachelor’s degree in computer science from National University Northern California, but his juggling hobby became too great a force to ignore. He began juggling full time.

In 1995, Montane was in Las Vegas for the jugglers festival. There he met a businessman who had just bought a juggling equipment company and was relocating it from Seattle to Doraville. Montane was hired to work for the company and moved to Georgia.

In Atlanta, he still performed. Through work, he met his wife, Perri, an opera singer. She sang telegrams on the side. He juggled, she belted—- a match that was meant to be.

Why juggle?

“Well, if you ask the jugglers, most of them will include words like relaxing and absorbing and challenging, ” said John Satriano of the International Jugglers’ Association, which is organizing this year’s festival in Winston-Salem, N.C.

“It’s really a hobby that has an endless level of depth, ” Satriano said.

Apparently, the possibilities of objects to toss are endless, too.

“Yo-yos, spinning balls, boomerangs, wooden spoons, knives, spatulas, bowling balls and empty whiskey bottles, ” Satriano said.

Montane once juggled office supplies before a group of Delta employees.

And for advanced pupils, there are more challenging objects, say, torches or machetes.

Ouch!

ON THE WEB

> For information, e-mail juggler@davidMontane.com or visit www.severaldancerscore.org/initiatives/atlstudio.htm.

>For a demonstration of David Montane’s juggling, go to ajc.com/metro/dekalb