"Oh no, not the coat hanger!  Yup.  The coat hanger." - Barto

Barto is a contortionist, acrobat, rope walker, juggler, and comedian who performed at the Renaissance Festival up through the 2005 season.  The positions that he could get himself into were pretty impressive and he had other interesting tricks to go with his acrobatics, most of which you can't see in any other acts at the faire.  We can safely say he is the only performer we've ever seen stick their whole body through a wire coat hanger.  Another one of his tricks involved him blowing up a kitchen glove while it was on his head ("big enough?"), and his finale involved juggling fire while walking on a slack rope held up by 'volunteers' from the audience.  And even though Barto's english was not always that easy to understand, his comedy transcended the language barrier.  In fact, because of the little amount of english he did use in his show, his lines were even more memorable.

We really miss having Barto at the Renaissance Festival and can't believe how long it's actually been since we last saw his show live.  Hopefully one day he'll make a return to Revel Grove to impress audiences once again.  Even though he wouldn't be able to do his finale full justice without fire (because of the no fire rule), he still had plenty of other unique material that he could do.