| Daniel J. Fernandez A.K.A. Duckie | |
| by Jerry Eakin | |
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| Jerry Eakin: What's your name? |  |
| D: Daniel J. Fernandez....or Duckie to most of the faire people that know me... | |
| JE: How long have you been doing faire? | |
| D: about 7 years now... or too long... depends on how you look at it. | |
| JE: How did you get involved with faire? | |
| D: Tiny got me involved in one of his old guilds....put me in a kilt and gave me a sword and told me who to fight....was fun... | |
| JE: How did you get involved with juggling? | |
| D: I was bored one day at school and met some friends. Oscar taught me the basics and sent me on my way, he gave me a good base to start with......then I somehow found that I had a talent for playing with my balls... Oscar and RJ were the first people that I had to juggle with and learn from. | |
| JE: Did juggling play a part in your interest to perform in front of people? | |
| D: in a way yes but in some ways no. I was a drummer in a punk band and loved getting on stage and playing and having fun in front of people. Juggling was a different skill where I wasn't hiding behind kit or other members of the band, I had to be there and pretty much try to show off and make people laugh. | |
| JE: You've also done a lot of study. What schools have you gone to and what did they teach? | |
| D: well....in elementary school I learned my alphabet and how to count...most of my colors and some arithmetic... high school was just more of that just more advanced... in high school I also learned what it was like to be ostracized from the crowd.....when I went to college I learned a lot of different stuff... | |
| JE: Apparently CLOWN is one of the things you learned in elementary as well (smirk) what performance schools have you attended? | |
| D: oh... uh... I learned most of my performing on the street and from work shops by some great performers. I did go to Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre where I studied, well, um... physical theatre. I learned how to use my body to express and perform rather then just using my face and voice, I also studied Melodrama, Commedia, and Clown (my favorite). It also instilled in me a passion for learning more theatre so I have been studying a lot independently. | |
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JE: What do you think your ultimate goal is right now? (As a performer) |
| D: currently I am studying different forms and ideas of theatre and am using what I can to start building my show, actually, I think I have too many ideas to use and am trying to cut down. I hope to create something new and fun in the realm of clown. I am also working on some movement pieces using my juggling and object manipulation abilities with dance to try to create something beautiful....or disturbing... I'm not sure which one yet. | |
| JE: How did Out of Kontrol come about? | |
| D: It was actually
by accident I think, Tommy and Boggess had been juggling together for
a while with an old juggler in porterville named Myron Willcox. RJ
and I had been learning stuff on our own such as clubs and passing. Then
at 12th night about 6 years or so ago we were all juggling and playing around
in the middle of the room and somehow came to the decision to form a group
consisting of the 4 of us. We set up practices every week at the YMCA
in Visalia and worked on our skills.
Myron coached us to get our passing abilities up and gave us suggestions on what to do. He helped us figure out timing when we really didn't know what it was. A couple months later we performed our first show at FCC. |
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| JE: So is there any performance stories that stick out in your mind you can share? | |
| D: I think one of the funniest ones was when Tommy caught fire and his mommy had to come out and put him out because he thought the audience was screaming his name and yelling fire because he was hot and really good at balancing a torch on his nose... or maybe the time I caught fire myself.....or the time Tommy told Boggess that he {AHEM} his mother .....that was a good one... | |
| JE: He didn't figure it out for himself? | |
| D: nope....not a clue... | |
| JE: How did Boggess react to Tommy telling him he'd done the deed with his mom? | |
| D: shock... since we had Tommy gagged he didn't expect that we could hear something like that with such articulation very load in the middle of a show with kids in the front row... Tommy must have had practice talking with something gagging him...;-) | |
| JE: What would you say has been your worst performance story? | |
| D: my worst performance story? I would say that would be Santa Barbara 4 years ago. After drinking all night to the point that I was dragged into my tent, literally, I woke up and could not lift my head up off the ground. I was barely able to move at all that morning and didn't make it to our first show. That sucked, then I did make it to the second show, I did shaker cups, it hurt. |  |
| JE: So what is it you are currently teaching, and to who? | |
| D: I am teaching Juggling and other circus skills to kids in the Midwest with a program called Circus Of The Kids. | |
| JE: How's teaching? Would you say easier or more difficult then getting in front of people and performing? | |
| D: teaching
is easy. I have a natural talent for teaching so it comes easy to
me. Getting up on stage and performing is different, takes a whole different
kind of energy. On stage you have to try to be funny or at least entertaining. With OOK it's easy, I share the stage with 3 others who are fun to work with. With the show I am currently working on it's just me so I have to try to be entertaining and/or funny on my own. |
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| JE: Having the chance to hang out with as many jugglers as I have in the last couple years I have noticed that there's a lot of "little" things that people will do that most people won't pick up on unless juggle themselves. Are there any little things you have done on stage that's more for you then say someone totally unfamiliar with juggling? | |
| D: well, yeah. Maybe not so much juggling wise but some of the stuff we do on stage has a lot to what entertains us. We pick on each other mercilessly while on stage by either making jokes or other types of physical humor. Some of the stuff we do is very inside humor that an audience wouldn't get sometimes but they love the reaction and the fun we try to project on to the stage. | |