Henry the Juggler Brings Joy to Concord's Earth Day

By Dan Kemp

Those who attend the Musketaquid Earth Day Parade and Festival on April 27 will see brass bands, puppets large and small, dancers, animal masks, and even a river spirit emerging from the Concord River. One of the many people walking in the parade will be Henry Lappen. But unlike most other participants, he will be walking on high stilts and, oh yes, juggling at the same time. At the festival, you will see him using masks in a show about birds and their behavior.

Henry learned to juggle in college and began juggling as a hobby. Inspired by what he saw at an international juggling convention, he started a juggling club in Burlington, Vermont and began to teach juggling. One day, as he was juggling in a park, someone saw him and hired him to do a show. When the same thing happened again within a week, juggling began to look like a profession. To take his skills to a new level, he trained for a year at Dell’Arte School of Physical Theater in California.

Henry has been a professional juggler for 38 years. He lives in Amherst, Massachusetts, and travels throughout New England and New York doing 75 to 100 performances a year at libraries, festivals, recreation departments, private parties, corporate events, and schools.

PASSION FOR PERFORMING, AND FOR NATURE

Using masks as props, Henry also does an educational performance about birds and their behavior. Birding has been a passion for him since his twenties and he takes his binoculars wherever he goes. While he is enthusiastic about the natural world in general, birds are particularly appealing because they are visible, colorful, and have interesting behaviors. He is fascinated by bird migration, and in the fall makes trips to hawk-watching sites like Mt. Wachusett, where hawk counts average over 12,000 per season.

When I first saw Henry perform, he was doing a juggling show for a group of elementary-school-aged children at the Winchester Recreation Department. He’s a tall, lean man with a graying ponytail, and he was dressed in his red-and-black juggler’s costume. He juggled balls, rings, and Indian clubs, but what was most compelling was his connection with the audience. He involved them at every step and had twenty children watching enthralled. Attention deficits disappear when Henry is performing. My own attention reached a new high when he took my camera, hung it on a crutch, and balanced the crutch on his chin. At the end of the performance, he had all the children and staff members on their feet, happily learning to juggle.

STAYING POSITIVE, BRINGING JOY

I asked Henry how he avoided becoming discouraged in the face an increasingly disheartening and dangerous world. He answered that he doesn’t allow himself to feel despair. He believes that there have been comparably hazardous times in the past, but safer and better times have followed. You just have to keep hoping and working toward that.

In December, he travelled to Tijuana, Mexico where some 8,000 migrants were waiting to apply for asylum in the United States. There he joined hundreds of volunteers working to provide food and shelter, as well as health, legal, and other services. For a week, performing at soup kitchens and shelters, Henry the Juggler brought moments of joy to people trapped in a desperate situation. Back home in Amherst, he recalls the plight of the migrants, but also finds hope in the thought that “human kindness is happening day in and day out, in Tijuana and elsewhere, making the world a little bit better and sweeter.”

He says, “There is always a way to keep working on what you do and what is good for the world. And for me that’s planting trees, educating people about birds, making them laugh, or laughing with them.”

Except for planting trees, Henry will be doing all that in Concord for Earth Day. Join him at 10:30AM, April 27 (rain date April 28) for the parade kickoff at The Umbrella Community Arts Center at 40 Stow Street. Complete schedule: https://TheUmbrellaArts.org/earth-day

Photos: Top, Dan Kemp; Middle & Bottom, Greg Ciccarelli