Bob Rumba
VU Associate Professor
Bob Rumba is a Midwest-based professional ventriloquist, impressionist, and balloon artist. Known for being the "class clown" in his high school classrooms, Bob Rumba was destined for the unorthodox lifestyle of being a performer. Starting in traditional theater settings, and taking his love for performance into night clubs with his variety show that included balloons, juggling and ventriloquism. After working the nightclub circuit for thirty years, Bob started working at casinos performing look alike characters such as Charlie Chaplin, Groucho Marx, and Barney Fife. This was also when Bob experimented with new ways to create balloon animals.
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Bob Rumba's popular lectures and workshops on voices have provided a new way for vents to approach character building for their puppet partner, ushering in creativity and originality in a new age of the art.
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Throughout his career in showbiz, Bob Rumba has also been a creative consultant, offering wacky and off the wall ideas to help acts stand out in their genre.
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Currently, Rumba is a member of the board of advisors for The Vent Haven Ventriloquist ConVENTion, and also is a prime part of Landon Harvey's creative team when it comes to fashioning new voices, puppets, and routine ideas.