Contact Juggling: Part One
Ideal for the beginner: all the basics in sequence, with each move clearly presented, and looped for study in the appendix so you won't have to ride the VCR remote controls. Ideal for the expert: enough advanced moves to keep you busy for months. This is the contact juggling video you've been waiting for: the real stuff, the real moves. A great visual guide to the only book on this subject (James Ernest's "Contact Juggling), but with more tricks and its own, special perspective. VHS, 60 minutes, US$20 + shipping.
- Brian Dube
- Infinite Illusions
- Renegade
- Serious Juggling
The hassle of ordering directly from the publisher is probably not worth the effort, though it is an option. There is this fussy prepayment by surface mail stuff and then a 4 to 6 week wait for the video which all your friends will have seen by that time anyway. The trade-off (free shipping and the warm fuzzy but slightly sticky feeling you get from knowing that Greg and Owen [and Eric] get twice as much of your money out of the deal) is not sufficient incentive for any but the idealists here. But whatever. If that's you, send a check or money order for $20 payable in U.S. funds at a U.S. bank, to Flaming Sparrow Press, P.O. Box 82289, Portland OR 97282, USA, specify PAL if you need it, and be sure your address is complete and legible and that you'll still be there in a couple of months. See? It's hardly worth reading this stupid paragraph which Kae will probably cut out anyway, but who am I to stop crazy people from living out their fantasies? =FSP
Review
by Ryan Mellors"Contact Juggling : Part One" is an instructional video for beginner and intermediate contact jugglers that compliments and expands upon James Ernest's book, "Contact Juggling". It is, for the most part, straightforward, presenting twenty-one basic tricks ranging from butterflies and back-back transfers to more complicated body rolls, head catches and palm-spins. Side by side with James Ernest's book, the video provides enough variety to set any beginner well on their way, yet also offers enough techical insight to improve even the most seasoned contact veteran. Even without James Ernest's book, "Contact Juggling : Part One" stands alone as being one of the only high quality instructional videotapes for contact juggling on the market today; something that the contact community has been waiting for.
The video is a collaborative project between two Portland based contact jugglers, Greg Maldonado and Owen Edson. Greg has been teaching contact juggling for several years at European and American juggling festivals, as well as performing with bands at parties and clubs in the streets and theaters of Seattle, New York, London and Amsterdam. Owen Edson is a longtime actor, director and performer from Los Angeles, currently working is with Idiot Machine and Constant Theater. Together, the two juggers bring humor to the project as well as offer their theoretical and philosophical wisdom.
For those looking at the video-game like cover and expecting a spectacle of isolated pyramids, complex rolling patterns, and jawdroppingly stunning performances, this video may not be the answer. "Contact Juggling : Part One" focuses on the building blocks and foundations of contact juggling, from the perspective of two Reed College kids who are really, really good at this stuff. The video leaves the performance aspect of contact juggling open and untouched, thus encouraging creativity and innovation in the individual juggler rather than presenting a single method to imitate.
Or maybe they are just saving all the crazy stuff for Part Two...