Advertisement
Advertisement
-
Re: this melted my mind
Mon, September 22, 2008 - 8:34 AMah, yes, this is a good one.
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, October 21, 2008 - 10:50 AMThat was insanity!!! -
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, October 21, 2008 - 3:21 PMSome very good isolation/illusions. Some rather crap ones (not yet smoothed & integrated -- don't show it until it works!). Good minimalist mime. A lot of new stuff and nicely recast old stuff. Nice bit of drunken master work near the end.
As usual, much too long.
There were several story lines or characters, some very nice indeed, but no resolution to any of them. He just showed us everything in his bag without connection or having made any of it into a performance piece.
Establish your image/character, give it a story/conflict, resolve/conclude it. -- 3 min maximum .
-
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, October 21, 2008 - 7:04 PMit was of someone filming this guy at japan contact juggling convention. he was showing of his skills for other contact jugglers. He didn't have any editing involved in making the video.
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, October 28, 2008 - 1:42 PMEric,
Interesting theory, but it constructs every piece of work you do into one realm of story telling. I agree that most acts can be shorter, but I don't agree that things should be so formulaic -
-
Re: this melted my mind
Wed, October 29, 2008 - 11:22 AMYes, it's formulaic; I know that what I offered is trite. My excuse is that it's an over reaction to the deadly sameness out there.
Almost everything seen these days is simply: do all my tricks, do 'em again, stop.
Many of the tricks are cool, indeed. But they need /some/ kind of framing to take them above the level of a yo-yo contest.
Slightly more interesting is to allow the music to dictate the structure, moving to the rhythm, accentuating the volume and dynamics. The simplest form of this is belly dancing (which musically is almost a drone, but does at least have a beginning and an end.) How about a CJ dance to Sinatra's "My Way"? To the trucker anthem "Convoy"? To Katchaturian's "Sabre Dance"?
I'll happily accept any structure that is imposed with some forethought by the performer, rather than simply dumped out like a table full of baubles at a Chinese flea market. I like form and structure. I like storytelling. I like my CJ to convey some meaning beyond "Here's a trick, here's another, . . . "
Ryan's work is a lovely example of variously structured content. I've seen others, but very few.
In the very few years I was performing I used it as a parallel to ballet's pas de deux, where the dancer focuses entirely on the other (the ball), enhancing the other's movement and beauty, and the ball "focused" entirely on me. I've used it as the McGuffin in a love story. I've used it in group work so that there is one fewer ball than the number of pairs of performers and the CJ moves between couples, and couples split up and form new pairs, and someone is always abandoned. I've used it as a hyper-macho dance-off between contesting CJ dancers, as in the Flamenco movie ballets.
Surely more can be done.
-
-
Re: this melted my mind
Wed, October 29, 2008 - 2:26 PMI'll agree with you there, but to be fair that takes practice and pursuit. I have had 80 busking shows, and I still don't feel like I know what I am doing, I was told the first hundred don't count so I have tried infinite variations to the idea, and its really difficult to really show a story without the 'hear's a trick' story. At best, I can use it as a compliment to my own person, and the expression I choose to represent in my moment. -
-
Re: this melted my mind
Wed, October 29, 2008 - 4:15 PMVery good! "The first 100 don't count" is from Scotty Meltzer, but he probably heard it from someone else. It's good advice.
You're using that first 100 to learn who you are to them, who they are to you, and what makes for nice enough conversation between the two of you so that they want more. If you've done 80, you know more than the civilians will ever know. That doesn't make you a world-class performer, but it makes you a busking survivor. Go to www.performers.net (I think) to find your peers.
Scotty also said "You get what you ask for, so ask for more." Never mention change, just bills. $5, $10 -- they'll tell you when you've asked for more than you're "worth" at this point in your skill development and on that day of your life.
80 is not a small accomplishment. Congratulations!
=Eric
-
-
Re: this melted my mind
Sat, November 1, 2008 - 2:03 PMThere is a busking tribe for more info on this.
I think eric's main argument here is one of the ancient object manipulation arguments.... performance vs. a show of skills.... ultimately the best show will have both.
From a busking standpoint, of which i would say you're both more experienced than i, I've found that telling a story while doing tricks, sometimes explaining where the artform came from (never where it really came from, but some exciting legend you create) draws the crowd in more... also the here's a trick theres a trick, hey betcha can't do this....
i would think cjing plus statue would go over well too......
eh whatevs
- inexperienced n00b -
-
Re: this melted my mind
Sun, November 2, 2008 - 3:16 PMi think you mean "the best performance will have both" really, because that's the realm it falls under inevitably "performance art". What if a juggler doesn't want to be a performer and just wants to juggle? Why is that valued less, than in combination of performance art?
www.ministryofmanipulation.com/bl...cn/
I love this guys performance, and he's just contact juggling. There was a busker I saw this summer who did not give a story, terrible banter or shoddy juggling to emphasize the comedy, he just juggled. His show was amazing, and I wrote to him to tell him so. It was trick after trick, and I was thankful for his purist approach to juggling.
Why can't juggling be cool to show people without being a 'performance' and having to change it with other aspects?
- in my show, I have come to a 'who what where why when how' approach so far, as it remains pure for me, while still 'performing' like a busker. -
-
This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: this melted my mind
Mon, November 3, 2008 - 10:30 PMDepends on what you want from busking. Traditionally, busking's done to make money, not to demonstrate talent.
A raw talent show can be quite entertaining, and that's the key: entertaining/entertainment.
Jason Garfileld can do a bravura 7-ball routine that freaks out every juggler and wannabe in the audience. But whatsisname can do a tight 3-ball routine to music and have all of the non-jugglers (and there are soooo many more of them) going ape-shit over the fact that he's rhythmic and emotionally intense while doing a fairly easy (among jugglers) routine. It's "beauuuuuutiful!" if you have no true criterion for judgement.
If your goal is to make a living from busking, which group do you want to play to? The idiotic but rich tourists, or the sophisticated but penniless hippies?
-
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, November 4, 2008 - 12:57 PMEveryone! There are sophisticated tourists, but if you don't give them any credit, and tell them they are stupid they will believe you too. I find that act awful because of the manipulation of people involved. I am looking for something genuine, both from myself and my audience. Its tough, but I'm sure when I get it down it will be beautiful! ;) -
-
Re: this melted my mind
Tue, November 4, 2008 - 7:23 PMSounds like a very noble, idealistic, and perhaps challenging path you're choosing for yourself.
Over the last few years I've been adding more costume, body motion, audience participation, and talking into my performances and i've been lining up more gigs because of it. The few times i've busked, a sweet outfit makes you seem like more than some homeless kid with a ball (or contact staff, or whatevaz.) and talking to the audience, making a game out of it has been the difference between 120 dollars and no dollars. Cj especailly allows move for dancing, and many of the performances I enjoy looking at have that. Also, even the video you posted had someone wearing a sick outfit :)
People want to be entertained. The sad fact is most people can only be told to be entertained by what the booming voice in the television etc tells them to be entertained by. So mimicking that, and asking for money (black magick ahhhh!!) though not pure/honorable/and noble, carries a higher success rate in my limited amount of experience doing this.
Good luck!
-
-
Re: this melted my mind
Thu, November 6, 2008 - 1:24 PMThis is a good discussion, with multiple viewpoints represented, and some time tested performance knowledge.
The short formula given for a routine (' 3 minutes max, character-coflict-resolution) is a good place to start for someone new to routines or choreography.
I use talking in my performance whenever possible, especially with CJ. Sometimes I'm just supposed to dance while the DJ plays, but when it's MY show, I talk. The audience can get a sense of who I am (or who I pretend to be), and a person-to-person connection is more likely to result in a donation than the "anonymous" hat of a silent busker.
The two things I feel I have to add to this discussion are:
1. EVERY performance is audience specific. Even if you have a routine to music, your preface and outro should vary if you're in a stage/theater show versus on the street or at Burning Man. On a stage, you already own people's attention and applause; you can take more liberties with the audience's attention because thy trust you, at least for the first 45 seconds. I can't promise you more than that if you drop a lot or just plain suck.
On the street even a routine to music needs to be built up: "this will be very difficult..." "This is a routine I made about....." " I am a wizard and this magic ball is from...". And I'll stop in the middle with a good quip, or a comment to match an illusion. Extra points if this comment is something witty relating to that particular audience: "This guy in the red shoes dropped his jaw for that one. how about the rest of you?"
I like that because they know it's real, that you're real, and that the show is happening uniquely right now.
2. The most important thing I'm finding for nearly all objcet performances is getting across WHO you are. A personality is easy to relate to, and a conceptual trick is not. People will give you money if they feel like they know you AND like you. So you can present a pure style of juggling (primarily tricks) if you really own it. If you're having a good time and doing what you love, people get to know that about you, and want to support you: applause instead of heckles, and bills instead of walking away.
But talking can get your character across much faster and easier than tricks. Are you a funny person, a non-stop motor mouth, or one who puts in few comments but makes them count? Do you tell stories? Talk about the origins of your prop? Anything can work.
Putting #1 and #2 together will work wonders. You're blabbing away and people are walking away from your show. So you change your approach: "Now I'm going to keep my mouth closed for 30 seconds and do all the hardest tricks I know." That'll bring 'em back. Or you're silently meditative with the ball and people stop for a minute then keep moving. Change your approach: "Hey there happy family! Kids, do you want to touch the ball?" They stop, and you give thema taste of who you are, not just what you can do. Pay attention to th audience wherever you are, and tailor your show to that specific crowd.
That's my strategy, anyway
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
