#Repost @wintergartenberlin ・・・ Artist Portrait: ENRICO RASTELLI Enrico Rastelli was born 1896 in Samara, Russia. Growing up in an Italian circus family, the young Enrico received rigorous training from a young age and debuted at age 13 as part of his parents' aerial act. Rastelli's passion however lay with juggling, which he practiced tirelessly. His early performances, beginning at age 19, involved the manipulation of sticks and balls in a Japanese style, even including a kimono as his costume. Other than many contemporary jugglers, who would juggle everyday objects such as bottles, a hat and cane, loaves of bread or even chairs, Rastelli chose to restrict himself to objects more suited to throwing and catching such as plates, sticks, and balls, which, coupled with his rigorous training regiment of up to 12 hours per day, enabled him to develop a level of technical skill far beyond his contemporaries. Gaining increasing fame by the early 1920s, Rastelli toured Europe and America, eventually moving from the circus to more lucrative vaudeville and varieté theatres, such as the Wintergarten in Berlin. Rastelli's careers was unfortunately cut short due to his contraction of pneumonia while touring Europe in 1931. Due to complications from his illness, Rastelli died on December 13, 1931, at his home in Bergamo, Italy, at the age of 34. His funeral was attended by thousands. In 1932, Vanity Fair magazine published a full-page photograph of Rastelli with the following Caption: "One of the most sensational attractions in the international world of vaudeville was the juggler Enrico Rastelli. In his twenty years devotion to his craft, this son of Italy elevated it, for probably the first time, to what was unmistakably an art. The accomplishment of this was due not only to the amazing agility and complexity of the juggling itself, [...] but to the incredible ease of his execution, and the visual impression made on the audience." You can find a video recording of one of Rastelli's jaw-dropping performances here: http://ow.ly/RTjZ30lfxLH #Berlin #WintergartenBerlin #Variete #Theater #History #WiGaHistory #CircusHistory https://www.instagram.com/p/BohOFiwjhMU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1sqs9zdlcleog