Performing Jokers (no cards)

 These ~67 showman and showwomen are jesters and other characters who perform without any playing cards. I had to split this section into performers without cards - ie this section - and performers with cards to keep it manageable.  The organization of this article, like all the others is:

-    short intro explaining the organizing principle of this part of the collection
-    images of some of my favorites from this section with brief commentary
-    a series of "ensemble" pictures which shows comprehensively the jokers in this section as they are organized in pages of nine. Note that most of these posts are out of date since I'm constantly updating the collection and I update the website far less often. Also, pay attention to the beautiful balance of each page in which subthemes are developed.

This kids looks like BeeBoy (the kid riding on the bee on the Bee joker) but he's now prancing and performing on his own.

This jokers is lovely but organizationally, challenging. She is part of a joker pair, her partner is juggling. One principle is that paired jokers stay together so I needed to choose between going into the juggling section or performing.  Her partner is a guy so I went with the principle that the behavior of the women overrides the men for organizational choices. This is based on my own lived experience.

This guy could be said to be dancing. It highlights the dilemma, not totally clear, of the line between dancing and performing.  

This joker is from a deck made in the Bay Area in the 1960s as part of the Black Power / "Black is Beautiful" movements. Published 1972 by Omega. I recently started thinking more about the social and political messages embedded in cards, my thinking was helped by Rory Rennick, a European (Dutch?) that I met online who has written on how the African Diaspora experience is presented on cards over the last two hundred years. I collect and display all the jokers that I find which is often value neutral but there are issues implicit in sections such as the pin up girls section (call out toSolfrid Johanne Thunestvedt who has also pointed out some crass crappy comments by me) the international people section, and elsewhere. So far, I have only once shared my own political views in a post on Americana Jokers written on Memorial Day 2020.

And NOW, the ensemble shots. First, mostly magicians!

Then some prancers, all young.

These performers do it on their balls.

This starts with three more ball standers.

Then a row of watch my hands.  

Lastly, three creepers.

These are inverted or practically floating.

Here are some related jokers that you really must see:

Dancing with or without jesters wands 

Performing with cards or without cards (old post on performers)

Juggling things 

Juggling Jesters

Juggling cards   plus the Scatterman variations: Coming Soon!

Sitting - Forward vs Sideways

Standing Jesters 

Head Shots or Busts. On a stick, heads, hands no wand, hand with a wand  

Fighters! ie Jokers with swords, etc

Clown Jokers 

SuperHero Jokers