Gandini Juggling : Gandini Juggling Journal

27 August 2010

Back to Back Galore

Ok, this is a bit old now, but I just saw it yesterday, while browsing the shelves of one of those arty shops in Shoreditch with very few products and even less clients, which you wonder how they make a living.

It's the cover of Heston Blumenthal's Big Fat Duck Cookbook. It reminded me of this:

I think Sean and Owen managed to pass more objects back to back than the people on the cover of the book.

And this was Sean and me trying to beat the record but, as you can see, our pattern wasn't very stable...
Sean_Iñaki_Rings.jpg

Posted By Iñaki At 12:07 • Comments (0)

26 August 2010

Smashed interview

Review of Smashed and Interview with Sean Gandini
Posted By Sean Gandini At 15:41 • Comments (0)

22 August 2010

Coffee and Juggling

Our marvelous training gym is in the heart of London, a stone throw from the tempting coffee houses of Soho. On the Byzantine crossroads between old school seediness and new bohemianism there is an unassuming cart which serves invigorating coffee and conversation...Pitch 1202 Rupert Street, just off Brewer Street, Soho, London, W1D

There is quote widely attributed to Erdős, A mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems...i like to think that a juggler is a machine for turning coffee into new patterns...or as Iñaki reminded me a couple of days ago:¨Sadness is just another word for not enough coffee"

Posted By Sean Gandini At 01:01 • Comments (0)

10 August 2010

The sky is too bright

More juggling Journeys, 15000 Girl guides in country house in rain infused English countryside, Dolce Vitaing in Liverpool, hugs from 2 year olds, fiberglass Hippopotamusses, extravagant parties in 13th Century Manor Houses in Yorkshire, the sky almost too bright for the flying props.... Picture by Tony Park more here.
Posted By Sean Gandini At 18:41 • Comments (0)

27 July 2010

Soleil Gandini Style

Toby Walker, Jorge Silvestre Granda, Guy Waerenburgh and Tedros Grimaye, will be in Macau in the Circus du Soleil production Zaia, performing a Gandini style routine! If you travel to China...
Posted By Sean Gandini At 19:12 • Comments (0)

22 July 2010

Smashed Photos from Watch This Space

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Posted By Sean Gandini At 20:56 • Comments (0)

17 July 2010

Smashed Review

The shows at the National Theatre are going well. You can still catch us today and tomorrow. Somebody wrote a nice review of the new piece Smashed on their blog "There ought to be clowns". You can read it here.
Posted By Iñaki At 14:50 • Comments (0)

11 July 2010

Watch this Space

Smashed rehearsals A team of 9 gandinis will be performing outside the National Theatre next week as part of the Watch this Space annual festival. If you are in London at some point between Wednesday and Sunday come and see us. There will be "Gandini and Guests" shows, a new 9 jugglers piece called "Smashed" and workshops for beginners and advanced jugglers.
Posted By Iñaki At 09:49 • Comments (1)

05 July 2010

Sweet Life

This is the new main image for our Sweet Life microsite. Taken during La Strada Festival Internazionale in Brescia, Italy, June 2010.
Posted By Iñaki At 21:25 • Comments (0)

30 June 2010

The Slammer

A group of 8 Gandinis has been filming at The Slammer prison. Will they be released? We'll keep you posted! It was a pleasure to be in one of the only TV shows that still programs Variety acts today! We leave you a picture with all the juggling inmates. Owen, Iñaki, Bibi, Kati, Sean, Bichu, Arron and Fred.
Posted By Iñaki At 12:49 • Comments (0)

19 June 2010

Karamazov weave whispering

Just returned from Milan for the opening of the Latinoamericando festival in Milan. This photo is backstage with Paul one of the founding members of the Karamazov Brothers. He confirmed to me my suspicion that the classic weave, for four jugglers, was their invention. I had learned the weave from Ra Ra Zoo in a chinese whisper chain.

Photos of the Gandini's on the stage.

The festival was full of gyrating semi-clad beings which made me think how un-sexual most juggling performance is in comparison...

Posted By Sean Gandini At 00:07 • Comments (0)

06 June 2010

Juggler's Dreams

We have just completed five weeks of very rewarding research with Director/Juggler Maksim Komaro. The research was funded by the Arts Council of England. This photo was taken during an informal showing. The show is scheduled to premiere in Finland Spring 2011 and then tour theatres in the UK and France. The show features the Gandini core quartet with special guest Sakari Männistö.

Jugglers Dream showcase img2.jpg

Photo Aline Angeli

Posted By Sean Gandini At 19:06 • Comments (0)

23 May 2010

Martin Gardner

It seems like all our favorite nonagenarians are passing away. I have just heard about Martin Gardner's dying at the age of 95.

I spent my youth fascinated by magic and mathematics. When i was 14 i lived in France and found that i could go to the University Library and read Martin's legendary recreational mathematics column in Scientific American, tales of Hexaflexagons, infinite series, fractals, mathemagic and numerous other subjects that set my mind alight. He was also one of the leading figures in the skeptic movement, i would heartily recommend his books to anybody who has not yet had the pleasure of reading him. Both the mathematical writing and the essays.

James Randy posted a very nice tribute here.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 22:46 • Comments (0)

20 May 2010

Craneway Event

Merce Cunningham was arguably one of the greatest choreographers of all times. It is difficult to think of another choreographer whose sense of innovation, attention to detail in the movement of the human body and artistic vision parallels that of Cunningham. Not to mention the sheer body of work he left behind. At the time of his death Cunningham had choreographed nearly 200 works for his company.

In November 2008, the Merce Cunningham Dance Company performed an event in an empty port warehouse overlooking San Francisco Bay. The English visual artist Tacita Dean filmed the three days rehearsals leading to it.

The film is an extraordinary portrait of Merce. In a series of long still shots, we get a glimpse of the inner workings of the company. The camera sits quietly in the corners capturing the whole scene: the grand space, the natural light permeating through the big windows, the dancers moving intricately with the passing boats and the birds in the background, and Merce sitting in his chair observing, making sense of the vast amount of information spread over three stages, waiting to give short and precise notes to the dancers.

We left the projection room elated this afternoon. Cunningham's sense of rhythm and structure and his particular version of unadulterated dance is something we relate to in our juggling.

Craneway Event, 2009. Frith Street Gallery, London. Until 23 June.

Posted By Iñaki At 22:27 • Comments (0)

19 May 2010

Nederlands Jongleerfestival 2010

Gandinis with Peter Davison.

Last weekend we were at the Dutch Juggling Convention just outside Rotterdam.
Like always at this kind of events it was great to see so many jugglers, among them a lot of talented ones. It was also good to see some old friends and meet new ones.
One of the highlights of the convention was to spend some time with Peter Davison, one of the founders of the juggling trio Airjazz. Peter was in fantastic form and he performed a great solo routine on friday.
We want to thank the organizers for being so helpful and especially Harm van der Laan for looking after us extremely well.

Posted By Iñaki At 23:32 • Comments (0)

18 May 2010

Random notes from the pattern world.

Its been a season of research, Of going back to some of our old ideas, re-embracing simplicity,Virtuosity is a twisted temptress.

The search for patterns is an intriguing process, for clarity one restricts parameters, one thinks one is narrowing down one's search
to a small hypothetical area when out sprouts a whole vareity of new patterns, hybrid creatures, variations on variations...and one
wonders if they will be as beautiful in the morning.

And we try and learn off the youngsters, dissecting Wes Peden tricks, frame by framing body-throws, emanating Sakarisms..will they
fit? Will they be transformed? Good to have so much still to learn!

Posted By Sean Gandini At 11:01 • Comments (0)

21 March 2010

History and private property

I stumbled upon this (clicking on the link not the picture above!) medieval picture of a juggler, and i wondered what he actually did. There are 5 balls in his hands. Could he juggle all 5? Did he know many variations with 3? Did he work to music? So many questions which will remain forever unanswered.

The History of juggling begins this century, it is a frustrating affair, so little of the pre filmed juggling era is known. Compare it to the vast bibliography readily available to magicians and one pales in shame.

The smaller players have always been neglected...This got me thinking about Roberto and Wilfredo. There is so little information about them to be found. It needs an intrepid historical researcher to unearth more information. They were described as the inventors of bouncing ball juggling and indeed performed
multi wall bouncing, a clear precursor to Michael Moschen seminal Triangle piece. And yet Michael's justified historical position means that multi-surfaced ball bouncing gets referenced back to him and not Roberto and Wilfredo; taking away the steps in the process.

There are many examples of this, it makes me wonder weather the democratising process of the Internet will have a clarifying effect on history.

Having grown up in communist Havana in the seventies i have a clear sense of how different historical realities are. The history we were taught was fascinatingly different from what would have been taught 70 miles away in Florida!

Perhaps we need more histories, the more histories we have the closer to an authentic history we can have.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 18:55 • Comments (3)

21 February 2010

The relative value of art

Owen Reynolds, Tom Johnson, Chris Patfield, Inaki Fernandez Sastre, Jon Udry, Sean Gandini, Kati Yla-Hokkala performing Tom's three notes for three jugglers.
I have often thought that the appreciation of performance is completely intertwined in the context it is performed in. We recently had the pleasure of performing a work in progress version of two of Tom Johnson's pieces. In the context of a contemporary classical concert our showing felt light hearted and frivolous, in the context of a friendly juggling showing it felt serious and rigid...

This summer more finalised versions of these pieces will be premiered officially. Tom has been extremely generous over the years with sharing his music and we are very exited that he is getting interested in juggling as music. Indeed i think he lectured in Luke Wilson and Jay Gilligan's music and juggling course in Stockolm.

On a separate note, someone noted that although they appreciated our version of Steve Reich's clapping music they felt that it was more a visual illustration than a piece of music. I see their point.
Tom Johnson and performers.jpg

The Post Quartet, Tim Parkinson, Michael Parsons and the Gandinis.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 23:09 • Comments (0)

12 February 2010

Disparate thoughts and a Poem

Following from Inaki's post about large numbers, the BBC broadcast a wonderful documentary on Infinity which ironically includes spends some time discussing the ¨large¨ numbers, Google, Googleplex and Graham's number. Vertigo inducing indeed.

On a different note I recently discovered that Charlie Parker died whilst watching a Juggler on TV. I wonder whom? Below is a Jack Kerouac Poem that mentions this.

Charlie Parker looked like Buddha

Charlie Parker, who recently died
Laughing at a juggler on the TV
After weeks of strain and sickness,
Was called the Perfect Musician.
And his expression on his face
Was as calm, beautiful, and profound
As the image of the Buddha
Represented in the East, the lidded eyes
The expression that says "All Is Well"
This was what Charlie Parker
Said when he played, All is Well.
You had the feeling of early-in-the-morning
Like a hermit's joy, or
Like the perfect cry of some wild gang
At a jam session,
"Wail, Wop"
Charlie burst his lungs to reach the speed
Of what the speedsters wanted
And what they wanted
Was his eternal Slowdown.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 11:27 • Comments (0)

29 January 2010

Jugglers who give me vertigo

We all know that a lot of jugglers have a soft spot for mathematics (or is it the other way round?).

That's why I wasn't surprised, when reading an entry blog (in Spanish) about big numbers, to find out that two of the three numbers they mention were introduced by mathematician-jugglers.

This kind of numbers are so overwhelmingly big that thinking about them can give you mathematical vertigo.

The first one is Shannon number which is an estimate of the number of chess games possible. Claude Shannon was an amateur juggler and he is known for having built the first juggling robot and proving the first juggling-related theorems.

The other number is Graham's number, a number calculated in 64 steps where each step grows much bigger than the previous and where the first step alone has more digits than the number of particles in the Universe!
It is named after Ronald Graham, mathematician, trampolinist, juggler and past president of the IJA.

Posted By Iñaki At 10:59 • Comments (0)

Review of Smashed and Interview with Sean Gandini