Thom Wall speaking sense again in his latest post: Making things interesting -…

Owen Greenaway - 2015-11-28 20:01:19 UTC - Parent #

I slightly feel that this is suggesting you make a piece of theatre first and then add your skill to it. It's kind of implying you can't have a good circus performance without the character/theatre.

I loved Toby Walkers' performance at the BJC a few years ago. It was pure technical back to back skill but it was a variety of skills so that kept it engaging. It was also just at such a high level that it could hold its own.

I guess he is answering the question for performers who want to make routines for the general public rather than people like me, obsessed jugglers.

Little Paul - 2015-11-29 02:26:27 UTC - Parent #

That's not what I took away from the article at all.

Yes Thom is talking about building an act that works for audiences beyond the tiny market of juggling convention stages - but he's not talking about "build the theatre first, skills aren't important"

At its heart, he's outlining a technique for implementing something that lots of people have been trying desperately to get jugglers putting together an act to understand.

"Fill the stage, vary the pace"

Look at any great, high skill act (take gatto as an example) and look at *where* on the staff the juggling happens. It's not routed to one spot, it moved around the visual space.

Is it all fast, high impact, tricktricktricktrick ... or is there a shape to the energy in the routine? Are there peaks and troughs, applause points, breathing space for the audience?

I think that even if you went back and analysed Toby's performance with this I mind there would be more going on than you realised.

Toby has worked with the gandinis. Sean very much gets this stuff, I would be surprised if none of it had ever rubbed off on Toby.

Owen Greenaway - 2015-11-29 13:00:37 UTC - Parent #

Maybe I focused on this one section from the article too much: "The idea is simple – if an act’s choreography can hold an audience’s interest without any of the skills it was written with, won’t it be that much stronger when the choreography is done with the skills as well?"

I believe that if you removed the props from Toby's act it wouldn't "hold an audience’s interest". That's all I'm saying.

I didn't mean to imply that Toby's act wasn't well crafted with all the things you mentioned.