"LIKE RIDING HORSEBACK
FOR AMERICANS."
Japanese Juggler Also Gives
Views About Women.
It is just as natural for Japanese to juggle each other and heavy objects with their feet as it is for an American to ride horseback, according to the Kitabanzai troupe, which does seemingly wonderful work of that character at the Orpheum theater this week. The group is made up of members from four different families and range in age from very tender years to middle age.
"Ever since we have been children we have practiced juggling with our feet of heavy articles and now it is natural, like riding horseback is for the Americans," said one of the troupe last night. "We never knew that horses are to be ridden until we saw an American circus in our country. Instead of riding all the time we practiced this work until we got to be almost perfect in it and then we came to this country and on the stage."
All of the costumes and stage settings carried by the troupe are handmade and the work done in Japan. The back drop alone, which is designed as an ocean scene with huge battleships in the foreground, kept thirty men busy for four months.
When asked why there are so few Japanese women on the stage the young Japanese replied: "They, too, soon pick up the ways of American women and so dress like them and lose their ability to do gymnastic acts. We carried women with us a long time ago for a while and h ad to send them back. They grew no good. They can not act like emotion and when they became like American girl they can not act tumbling or juggling."
The work of the six Japanese at the theater this week is creating much wonder and comment. Never before has anything like it been seen in this city, but the acrobats themselves take their work as a matter of course. They are here to make a large sum of money and then they will return to their native home.
"Everybody likes his home the best and he will go back there some day," remarked the Japanese boy last night.
