Great Juggling, part 2: Jay and friends
After the previous mellow entry, I thought it might be nice to include something a little bit more high-energy. Now, the first few times I saw Jay Gilligan perform, back in the late nineties when I moved to the Midwest for college and started attending juggling festivals out there, his work was often very slow, very experimental. He could spend ten minutes manipulating a pair of juggling rings through a series of awkward body poses without making a single toss. His juggling in those shows was very unique, and I appreciated the creativity, but it was not exciting for me. (As a small aside, I do not think the upcoming contrast represents a change in Jay’s performance style; I probably had just missed his higher energy performances until this time.)
Then came Kuka:
A collaboration between Jay Gilligan and Manu Laude, Kuka’s subtitle is Pop Juggling, calling to mind, for me at least, pop music. Kuka is exuberant and energetic. There is no talking, no attempt at straightforward jokes with the audience or clowning buffoonery, but I smiled through the whole show. These two captured a feeling of spontaneous joy in playing around with each other and with the juggling props. As the review in Juggle magazine, (which I have since lost, and am therefore forced to paraphrase instead of quote,) said, the Kuka show walks a line between choreography so jazzy and fun it looks like improvisation, and improvisation between people so in tune with each other, it looks choreographed. At the time that I saw this show, I had relatively recently stopped juggling with my main juggling partner of five years. After the performance, I found myself actually feeling lonely, and wishing I had someone with whom to enter into that juggling space, where you’re so in step with your partner that juggling patterns just click together, and you’re both breaking ground into exciting new tricks and patterns, and laughing together the whole way. These were feelings I had encountered assorted times, sometimes at conventions with certain jugglers, learning new crazy passing patterns, sometimes with a particular partner when everything came together. I was sad, but I was also thankful that Kuka had taken me there again, at least for a while.
I’d like to add a bonus video that I came across recently, while looking for clips for this series of posts. This is another trailer, this time for a video that Wes Peden put together with Jay Gilligan, focusing entirely on three ball body throws (behind the back, for instance, being a common example.) This showcases some of the technical chops and creativity these guys have.
Tune in next time as we slow it down again….
Great Juggling, Part 1
I thought about doing this a while back, when I first wrote about the whole Chris Bliss thing. I let the idea go, but recently decided to go back and give it a shot. (Thank you, Dolores.)
This is the first in what I hope will be a fun series of posts about jugglers and juggling routines that I think are amazing: a showcase of personal favorites. I plan to stick to routines or jugglers that I have seen live, and left the show thinking, “Wow, that was incredible!” Some may lean towards innovation in technique and juggling. Some may lean towards artistry and expression. All, I think, include elements of both, and all expanded my own idea of what juggling performance could be. And, of course, I would love to see all of them gain greater recognition.
So for the first entry, I present Steven Ragatz!
I have seen this routine live at least twice, and would gladly see it again, many times over. Clean, polished, smooth, and almost contemplative, every aspect from the set and prop design through the music and outfit reflect the businessman character that Steven has created. This is juggling as Theater, bringing the audience to a place where, Mary Poppins-like, moments of magic intrude into the ordinary with nary a hiccup. He becomes playful as normal objects magically transform into movement, but, refined gentleman that he is, he never loses his composure. And when it is all over, he returns everything to its proper place, and leaves to go about his business. This is one of the most cohesive juggling routines I have ever seen.
Stay tuned for future posts in this series…balls, clubs, pop juggling, diabolo, we’ll have it all! With gushing, semi-articulate praise from me padding things out!
Breaking my silence on Chris Bliss, and not writing anything myself
So I’ve gone back and forth a number of times, trying to decide if I should post anything about the Chris Bliss video. When my upper elementary school teacher sent it to me, the first person to do so, I thought, that’s a nice little video, and forgot about it. When other family members and friends started sending it to me I thought, that’s odd, this plain little video is really getting around the internet. When I started coming across it on my favorite blogs and it continued to arrive in my e-mail, I started getting annoyed. I considered writing a crotchety post about why this video’s success annoyed me…but the idea seemed too sour. Besides, as a certain young lady I happen to live with kept half-jokingly pointing out, I was probably just jealous and would love to have a juggling video of MINE suddenly explode like that, regardless of the quality. There may be some truth to that, so I decided not to write anything. I vented a little to friends, a little to family, and that was that.
Then a friend of mine from college, someone I hadn’t heard from in five years, found me on myspace, and sent me a video. It was Chris Bliss juggling, this time to a Fatboy Slim song. Seemed like a music video. I sighed. She had sent it as a comment, so it would show up on my myspace profile. I just couldn’t bring myself to approve it.
Now, my friend Mark comes along with a nice explanation of why many jugglers have felt some inner exasperation at that video. I present to you Mark Hayward with some thoughts, and two new videos. Apparently, there is now a contest to make a juggling video to that Fatboy Slim song. Vova Galchenko made one, with Mark Bakalor. Mark Hayward links to both the original with Chris Bliss and the Vova version.
I like the Vova one a lot. Technical juggling at astronomical levels. My favorite bits, though, are the neat little three club, and five ball tricks scattered throughout, particularly in the second half, that create interesting visual patterns and body shapes.. I mean, it’s amazing that Vova can do those under the leg combos, but they’re not so visually interesting to me after a while…same thing with the pirouettes. But check out what Mark Hayward has to say on this for a non-crotchety response to the Chris Bliss explosion. I agree with him..and I really do wish that it was a better example of juggling that had exploded..a video with truly great juggling, both technical and artistic. I’ve seen so many phenomenal juggling acts at festivals and the like…I know it’s out there..
