×

Junior Writers Reporting

Juggling group of Hiroshima students seeks to entertain audiences

“Jug Ranger” is a club composed of about 20 students from Hiroshima Gakuin Junior High and High School. They perform juggling routines with balls, ropes, and sticks.

The club was formed in January 1996. At the time, a second-year student of the high school volunteered in the area damaged by The Great Hanshin Earthquake and conceived the idea of giving juggling performances to bring smiles to the people suffering from the disaster. After returning to Hiroshima, he founded the club with classmates.

The members of the club give performances at nursing homes, kindergartens, school festivals, and local festivals. They practice before classes start in the morning and during recess.

One member of the club, Shun Ikeda, 17, a second-year high school student, was invited by a classmate to join while in his second year of junior high. He is skilled at using the “diabolo,” a juggling prop shaped like two connecting bowls. It is manipulated with a string tied between two sticks.

He has strong memories of a performance the group gave at a day service center for the elderly. An old woman was moved to tears as she watched their performance, and said, “I’m so happy that these young people have come here to perform for us.”

The leader of the club, Takanori Okumoto, 15, is in his third year at the junior high school. He joined the club last May because he was fond of juggling performances he had seen on TV. “I want everyone to be entertained by our juggling,” he said. “Jug Ranger” performs about ten times a year, including at their school festival. (Daichi Ishii, 16)

(Originally Published on February 18, 2013)

Archives