ContactJuggling.org

Contact juggling is about breaking expectations. It's about lots of other stuff, too, but breaking expectations is pretty important. Every performance is a dialog with your audience, and no audience is a blank slate. In a juggling show, if the audience sees things that look like brightly colored juggling props - clubs, balls, rings, what-have-you - in the blink of an eye they build up expectations on what the show will be. They'll be expecting to see technical proficiency and athletic prowess, perhaps punctuated by humor or dance/artistic motion. The show proceeds, lives up to their expectations, and they go home impressed but probably not memorably so. No matter how difficult the show was, there was no surprise.

In fact, if you get too artistic, and start doing things like catching clubs at the other end, the pre-existing expectations make the audience think that you made a mistake, even if the catches were intentional, because juggling clubs look like juggling clubs and there's a certain way they should be used. Magic shows work a little differently; people come specifically to see their expectations broken, and know this will happen as soon as they see the wand, the deck of cards, the or the (shoot me now) linking rings.

CJ has traditionally had the advantage of being a show that, initially, might look like or be sold as juggling, and people aren't expecting for the expectations to be broken. It soon becomes clear, though, through floating balls and whatever other type of illusion you wish to employ, those expectations are broken and the audience is left with something unexpected and memorable specifically because they didn't realize it would be "that type of show." Further, they're still not clear of what type of show it is - is it magic, is it juggling, what exactly is going on here?

With the general trend of CJ becoming more recognizable, both via its own growing popularity and the Fushigi campaign, as well as the first advertisement's implications that there's some "gimmick" involved (thus destroying the ambiguity of "what kind of show is this?"), it's coming time to figure out exactly what expectations the audience has of CJ, and what visual cues inspire those expectations, in order that we can break them and have the same effects on audiences we've grown pleasantly accustomed to.

Through Fushigi (and, let's face it, through 25 years of contact history), two main expectations have arisen; that the ball will float and that it will glide. The floating effect is two-fold; a property of there being no "tell marks" on the ball during isolations, and the juggler's ability to make it look as though the ball's movement is independent of the body to which it is attached or, in some cases (the enigma and peek-a-boo) is totally detached from the body. These expectations are inspired first and foremost by clear balls, especially after the Fushigi commercial, but as we've seen is also inspired by pretty much any spherical object lacking tell marks.

There are two obvious solutions: doing something different and unexpected with a spherical object without tell marks, or applying our old isolationist methodologies to new props. Obviously both of these have been explored in depth for years, but perhaps its worth taking a fresh look at them in light of trying to redefine contact juggling. A third solution is to break the reasoning behind the expectations - obviously there's something intrinsic in the ball that makes it float, right? Let's prove that wrong. Contact juggle with something borrowed, something mundane and obviously not gimmicked, take an obviously *broken* acrylic or Fushigi and do the same set of tricks, either making sure it doesn't look as good, or raising the bar and making it look even better.

Like I said, none of these things are new concepts, especially given the wonderful dialog over the last few months. It might be worth systematizing all of these approaches, however, so we can figure out a really fast, effective, and easy way rid the audience of expectations right at the very beginning of the show, or even better create in them false expectations that we can later break. How can we use the idea that a Fushigi floats on its own in order to surprise the audience by making it do something it shouldn't? It might be worth looking deeper into the magic community for this, as this is their specialty.

Anybody have any thoughts on this? I hope it's not too long and boring to read

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-Lirnyk/Scott

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

You just gave me a brilliant idea which I may use for an upcoming Cabaret show I'm performing at. It goes off of your idea of CJing something obviously not gimmicked...I'm just hoping there will be an empty wine glass somewhere in reach at my show...or even better. Maybe if it wasn't empty...hmm...

For the past few weeks, I have been thinking about (*sigh) purchasing a fushigi ball for the sole use of showing people the magic does not reside in the ball, but more importantly, in the person holding the ball. I feel it would be incredibly effective to show an audience who was exposed to fushigi the similarities and differences in the balls.

As far as taking CJ a step further, i'm all for it. I have been under the impression the only way to come out on top of fushigi is to think outside of the next largest box (or couple of boxes) and truly become inventive. Dive deep into your artform, pull out something completely raw and flow with it. In a sense, we're kind of being forced to increase our skill level to accommodate and dominate an opposing force. I like to view it as a CJ rEvolution.

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I like where your thoughts are, Riel! I've pondered something similar, mostly because I find myself doing enigmas on my cup at work when I go to get water. Something without any tells would look mesmerizing. What about bowls as well, or some kind of vase? Imagine floating one over to an audience member, then setting it down on their table and placing a flower or two inside...

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That would be a great way to start a show.
It's definitely some delicious food for thought.

This goes along with thinking outside the next largest box.

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Great post Lirnyk!

I think audience expectations differ slightly for the two major different 'styles' of contact. Illusion and isolation based moves break audience expectations as you say, while bodyrolling seem to be closer to toss juggling where the audience expectation is technical proficiency and athletic prowess. They can see what you're doing and how you're doing it... you're rolling a ball down your arm and up onto your head... there's no illusion, only admiration at the skill.

Part of the problem with fushigi popularising the illusion and isolation based side of things is, in a way, that they are giving away the magic trick. We all say we're for expanding the spread of legitimate contact juggling, but ultimately it's like conjuring tricks - if too many people know what you're doing, there's no audience left to mystify any more.

But magic has managed to stay largely underground for a long time... even with the advent of TV advertised home magic kits for kids. Bodyrolling is automatically distanced somewhat from the fushigi phenomenon, but if we want to save the illusion and isolation-based aspects perhaps we need to start thinking more deeply of new illusions. Perhaps a deeper integration of stage magic or sleight of hand and ball manipulation will help keep the audience wondering?

Incidently, I was sitting in a restaurant the other day and doing the enigma on an empty soda glass. I had at least four people watching slack-jawed and not one of them said 'fushigi' so yeah, lets CJ more things too!

When I'm on corporate table hopping gigs I always give my ball to someone to hold and then take an empty wine glass to play with. It doubles the strength of my performance and really helps with making it very personal for the punters.

This is a great thread, I hope it bears many fruits! Oranges, for instance

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Elsie, I seem to recall a certain night in Birmingham a few months ago where we enigma'd pretty much everything in that Indian restaurant while waiting.....*forever*....for food =D


Especially with a ball with no tell marks, body rolls still create wonderful illusions - they're not quite as surprising as isolations, but the ability to roll seemingly against the flow of gravity, to keep rolls "isolated" in lines or planes, and the fact that balls with no tell lines look like they're gliding rather than rolling all contribute to the odd nature of CJ that makes people cock their heads and wonder. It's something that people can be impressed by the skill of, but also something just a little bit confusing and fits within the "breaking expectations" paradigm, even if not quite as strongly.


This clip pretty much sums up my views on bodyrolling. Notice how the reflection off my light stays in the same place on the ball no matter how it rolls, and the ball itself has no tell marks; this contributes to the sliding or gliding vs. rolling illusion. I also make sure the ball is always rolling up-hill to make the movement that much more unsettling or unnatural seeming. Lastly, I try to give the ball a minute pause at the outside elbow, not on the traditional stall point, but on the very corner. While the audience doesn't intrinsically know the difference between a stall point and a dynamic balance, stall points are "safe" spots that, unless used correctly, can kill your flow and the prop.

When you're CJing, the ball is a living thing, and you want to create tension with it by putting it in positions which are dynamically precarious. This was the initial reasoning behind Moschen's "rule" to never grip with his thumb. As soon as you're holding on to the prop, it dies; there's no more tension in its dynamics. It's clear there's just nowhere it's going without your say-so. The palm is OK, the cradle's a bit better, weird stall points are even better than that, but the best way to display your control of the ball is to keep it in a state of tense dynamic equilibrium, like that elbow joint, where it's not entirely clear if you're controlling the ball or it's controlling you; through this, you are able to give it life outside of itself.

[Edit: Ok, actually there's something I neglected to do in this video that messes with the above philosophy. When the ball dropped to my cradle, I kept it there for too long, it should have just kept rolling. Also, keep in mind this is a philosophy for a certain form of bodyrolling, and obviously doesn't jive with lots of the isolationist philosophies]

All of these methods can be used to keep an audience enthralled by making them question their initial expectations of what a prop is, what a roll is, how the prop is moving as it seems to be.


Unfortunately, it's that they're giving away the magic trick, the gimmick, but the gimmick is not the correct one! People are coming in not only with expectations whereas before they might not have known what CJ was, but their expectations may be based on false premises - namely, that there is some intrinsic quality of the ball which makes it float. We hopefully can use this to our advantage; they come in thinking it's a floating ball, and we somehow break that expectation by showing them something entirely different! As before, we can show them a broken Fushigi, or do a sleight-of-hand trick like Elsie and Kenny and many other performers have been doing for years, we can show them something that should not be possible without a Fushigi, or something that a Fushigi ball shouldn't be able to do. I really like the idea of starting or ending with a borrowed prop, like a wine glass, or doing the same sorts of illusions with something totally different, like a cigar box or hoop (thanks Ryan!) or even a deck of cards.

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-Lirnyk/Scott

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

p.s. I'd totally love to hear the body-rolling philosophies behind those of you on the board who are actually good at it, like Dawn and luminous fractal and grateful.... new thread, anyone? =D

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-Lirnyk/Scott

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

*bump* Comeon I want interesting ideas from you creative people on how to get back our surprise!

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-Lirnyk/Scott

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

i wrote some similar ideas in a now buried thread- talking about the changes in dance in the early 20th century, I have a lot of responses to this very cool thread but have to get ready to go busk! Will respond soon, thanks for putting this kind of stuff out there.

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I simply don't agree with your analysis of the situation. I think you have given fushigi too much credit, and forgotten that some of us worked for many years to create innovative work with balls way before it came around. To say 'we need to do this now' is to assume we didn't do it before.

I already said in other threads, I've given up on crystal ball performances as long as this s**t has taken over. I cannot be a fushigi commercial. They took it, bastardized it, I believe there is nothing we can do. I didn't want to be a performer anyway, I just wanted to roll balls around my body.

Keep trying, its probably good. But I'm not wasting my time with innovation when others will just take it and sell it again.

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Hey! I wasn't assuming that at all. Some of my favoritest favoritest videos are the ones that Ryan posted ages ago playing with clubs and boxes, or the ones posted by any of the zillion great dancers, led by Matt H and Elsie. There's also the possibility of moving to the poi-based geometric work (flowers and circles, etc) which for your tutorials a while back have been essential.

I'm not saying that these sorts of innovations haven't happened before, and in great store, I was just trying to figure out ways to combat the negative or incorrect expectations created by the Fushimmercials. Obviously lots of you have laid really solid foundations, and it'd be great if we could all have a reference for the best ways to immediately and incontrovertibly show that there a) there is no gimmick, or b) what we're doing is sufficiently different from Fushigi

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-Lirnyk/Scott

"Don't believe anything you read on the net. Except this. Well, including this, I suppose." - Douglas Adams

get a basket ball? (I'm really grumpy this morning... I'm going to stay out from now until I can be more productive.)

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I would curious to see what you all could do by adding a another prop to work in unison with the ball.
I've always thought a short length of track for the ball to roll on would be neat. Or holding a box and rolling the ball on that. Incorporating the surfaces of tables, ledges, and other things like that might be interesting.

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I've withhled posting this for a while, because, well...I'm not well versed in this community. I'm a regular, yes...but not been a regular for very long. I also only know a little about the history, so here goes:

I think we, as practitioners, are getting caught up in the use of a ball full stop. What Moschen called Dynamic Manipulation, seems to correlate more with the manipulating of all objects, and not just the crystal ball from 'Light'. Some people are experimenting with other props, such as MCP a la contact staff, but on the whole, vast majority are using a ball doing butterflys

I think if this artform is to flourish, then looking at different props under the core principles of CJ, will yield far more innovative success. I don't know the names of the other props I've seen, such as the doubled-hoops I've seen moon use, and that thing I cannot spell (buugeung...you know what I mean) - but I definitely believe that is the right track.

PS: For those interested - I got this opinion from thinking about CJ from Moschen's perspective, after watching his TED talk about 6 months ago, and thinking about why he felt so annoyed with CJ. I felt this thread was probably the best place to throw this.

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