Gandini Juggling : Gandini Juggling Journal

22 January 2012

Traces of Broken things

Our Friend Beinn Muir with whom we are currently collaborating on a book of juggling patterns sent the following after our recent shows at the Royal Opera House. We gathered the broken crockery from the last show.

"I had an idea that I wanted to ask you about on Thursday night. My parents live in Orkney and love to collect old pottery on the beach. I often do the same when I am there and at Christmas I found a fragment of an old ceramic ginger beer bottle from 1920! While we were there my parents kept on saying that they wanted broken pottery that they could throw in the sea to be tumbled and worn by the waves to be found by future generations. So now to my idea: would it be possible to collect together the broken crockery from your last show and keep it so that I can send it up to Orkney to be put in the sea for future generations to find? I thought it would have an interesting sense of persistence for such a wonderful series of shows in an amazing venue."

Posted By Sean Gandini At 14:40 • Comments (0)

17 November 2011

Remembering Gill Clarke

Gill Clarke
It is difficult in the emotion of the moment to speak calmly of the phenomenal influence and generosity that Gill had towards us. I hope to write something more coherent later.
I remember 20 years ago my excitement in a phone booth when Gill agreed to play with us. I remember Gill sneaking us in to Sue Davies dance classes in assorted spaces across London...i remember late night phone conversations about John Cage and about fragmenting juggling patterns...i remember dance sequences so beautifully eliptical they seemed to emanate from another planet...i remember her spending countless hours on movement detail that we probably never did justice to...i remember the weight of her body when she demonstrated a lift or lean...I remember how she called us Seamus and Katiushka...
i realize now that the wealth of these memories will stay with us always. There are traces of her in everything we do. If there was celestial justice though she would not have left so soon...
I am sure she touched a multitude of people with the same intensity that we felt and i suppose that is a rare gift to have had. We will miss her more than words can say, as a friend and as a teacher.
Sean G

Posted By Sean Gandini At 17:16 • Comments (0)

29 September 2011

D G C

In the midst of an intensive week of Smashed shows in the north of France we used our two days off to make a quick trip to the beautiful city of Amsterdam to premiere Tom Johnson's "Three Notes for Three Jugglers" and a first draft of his "Five-Ball Canons".

The performance was part of the festival of electronic music "Patterns+Pleasure" organized by Steim (studio for electro instrumental music), which designed and manufactured the sound balls used for the two compositions that they also commissioned.

Both pieces are highly minimalist in its elements and structure, requiring very precise timing in the juggling and making them substantial exercises in concentration.

In spite of minor glitches, we were very happy with the result and the audience seemed to have enjoyed it.

To add glamour to the occasion, the composer was in the audience, as was Luke Wilson, our number one fan this year and also interpreter of some earlier Johnson's pieces.

Photo by virtueel_platform

Photo by virtueel_platform

Posted By Iñaki At 18:41 • Comments (1)

14 August 2011

Sea of Theatricallity

In our early years we had a formalist commitment to juggling for juggling's sake. Two decade's ago we raged against narrative circus, placing our humble art form in an idealised box.

I remembered this recently during our residency at the National Theatre. We have been swimming in a sea of theatricality. Juggling has a cryptic and untapped theatrical potential. The archetypes which surround it, are perhaps its richest pickings. It's absurdness is its strength.

This year we have been playing with starting shows from images instead of structure. It has been a curious journey. From the Alexander Mcqueen inspired sketches at Circommedia to the a performance art inspired sketches of Blotched. Hopefully some of these ideas will mature in Clowns and Queens the company's large scale.

Pictures from these theatrical escapades below.

Perhaps we move away from the idea of juggling being a blank slate language, but rather a symbolically rich language which has many stories to tell. Perhaps also it will be fun to put juggling back into its idealised box...circular stages with the unadulterated joy of those parabolic arts, logarithmic, unfrontal, ephemeral...

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 23:21 • Comments (2)

03 July 2011

Symbolism - apples are not the only fruit

This beatifull picture launched me into daydreams of other fruit juggling shows. Hundreds of oranges, peaches and grapes with all their inherent symbolisms. And yet apples have something so perfect. Photo by Maynard Case
Posted By Sean Gandini At 23:31 • Comments (4)

27 June 2011

Smashed Music

Below is the list of musics for Smashed. The list is for the long version of the show so some of the songs are not in all performances.

Above a beatiful picture of the second women scene which mostly gets performed in the long version of the show. Below the ever hungry Malte Steinmetz...

I've Always Wanted To Dance In Berlin-Little Jack Little
I Like Bananas Because They Have No Bones-Hossier Hot Shots
Bach: French Suite #2 In C Minor, BWV 813 - Sarabande
The End of the World-Bill Frisell
Stand By Your Man-Tammy Wynette
In the Shade of the Old Apple-Mills Brothers, Louis Armstrong
That Cat Is High-The Ink Spots
Ezekiel Saw The Wheel-The Charioteers
Dreaming-Al Bowlly
Vivaldi: Il Farnace, RV 711 - Gelido In Ogni Vena

malte gare.jpg

Posted By Sean Gandini At 21:37 • Comments (2)

11 June 2011

Summer plans

We have been away from the blog for a while now, so I thought I'd do a quick update.

After successfully premiering Motet in Helsinki just over a month ago, we've been mainly back in London except for a recent escapade to France where we performed Smashed at the Gare au Gorille festival in the beautiful Lannion region.

Gandini Juggling on a paper tablecloth at Gare au Gorille.

Looking ahead, the summer will take us back to France again a few times. First to the French juggling convention in Rennes and after to a couple of different places to do Smashed, which is becoming increasingly popular in the country.

For the third consecutive year, we will be in residence at Watch this Space, outside the National Theatre. The ever supporting team led by Angus MacKechnie has commissioned a new piece which will be performed alongside other shows from the company repertoire. Have a look at the program below for more details.

Posted By Iñaki At 09:57 • Comments (2)

22 April 2011

Smashed as seen by Ryoko

The Smashed photographic project by Ryoko Uyama has taken a leap forward this week with the publication of a very nice booklet featuring the members of the cast and some images of the show. This is Ryoko with the first copy in her hands, still fresh from the printer. More pictures by Ryoko from our latest tour in France here.
Posted By Iñaki At 19:34 • Comments (3)

14 April 2011

Gandinis on Le Plus Grand

This coming Saturday, at 20:35h French time, we'll be on Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde, France 2 TV channel.
Posted By Iñaki At 17:41 • Comments (3)

13 April 2011

At Sea

Finished the French season and off to Scandinavia…

At the moment we are working on a new project with Maksim Komaro. The results will be shown in Helsinki the first week of May.

Last weekend we had a job in a cruise ship in the Baltic Sea, and the shows got me thinking. What a different world from the French world of new circus. It seems at times like there is a rigid dichotomy between what is a more "arty" or serious performance style and what is simple entertainment. Perhaps in other disciplines, like dance, one can only belong to one of those categories, but we are fortunate that our small juggling scene allows us to taste the best of both worlds. I wouldn't want to give up any of them!

Posted By Iñaki At 18:58 • Comments (2)

29 March 2011

La Brèche

It's a busy week here at Gandini house. A group of nine of us is in residency at La Brèche, in Cherbourg, where we will be doing two different shows.

On Thursday, in collaboration with L'Ensemble, we will perform the entire Four Seasons by Antonio Vivaldi; one juggling piece for each musical movement. We did a first general rehearsal today with the orchestra and it felt great. I always get exhilarated performing with live musicians.

On Sunday we are reviving and doing a longer version of Smashed, one of the latest theatrical pieces in our repertoire.

If you happen to be in Normandy this week come to see us. There will be other shows and workshops during the week as well.

Posted By Iñaki At 22:39 • Comments (1)

14 March 2011

Tabloid Juggling

So today we get an email from one of the researchers at ITV which i reproduce below.

I hope you don't mind me emailing out of the blue. My name is xxxx and I work in the UK on the television show Britain's Got Talent. I came across a video of you called 'Clapping Music' on YouTube and I wanted to get in touch.

He then proceeds to tell us we would be perfect for Britain has got Talent. Wow Steve Reich for Tabloid TV? What next, Table from Downfall? Which has all the performers sitting and virtually doing nothing for 10 minutes? Now we get a number of these every year as do most established performers and one politely says no thanks. This one however struck me as particularly absurd. Here is a supremely repetitive piece of juggling, 8 minutes of tiny variations on a 12 beat cycle and this researcher seems to think that this would be good on multicoloured Tabloid TV...

Actually Mat Ricardo has a nice series of letters which he exchanged with them which are a good summing of up of the absurdity of our relationship with the Tabloid Mothership... Depressing stuff.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 20:47 • Comments (3)

21 February 2011

Apples as temptation

This picture if from a project with japanese photographer Ryoko Uyama. Inspired by our show Smashed it will features the Smashed cast in Ryokos idiosyncratic domestic photos. The book should be out by end of May 2011.
Posted By Sean Gandini At 16:46 • Comments (1)

18 February 2011

Pedagogical escapades

Kati and I had Pedagogical January with intensensive workshops in Quebec City and Montreal, we have been fortunate over the years to meet many of the leading lights of the current juggling scene
whilst they were still learning, Joelle Huguening did workshops with us from the age of 11! I sometimes feel like i learn more from the students than they learn from us, but perhaps that is true of all teaching.
Teaching also makes you question what you do and teach, do i really apply what i am teaching to our own juggling, to our own creative process? Do i have as much energy and commitment as these kids?

We also had the unexpected pleasure of having a couple of cutting edge performers attend our workshops. It reassures me that the north American performance juggling scene has more and more diversity!

I miss the sound of snow crunching under my feet on the way to teach, miss French Canadian French. The journey home was via a week rehearsals for our new show Motet in Helsinki and a lecture in Madrid and Le Plus Cabaret in Paris. Its good to be home for a little bit.

In the photo the juggling specialists and teachers at the Montreal Circus School.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 11:22 • Comments (1)

15 February 2011

Mike Day Circularity

Mike Day's solos where some of my favorite moments from our early experimental shows. Here Mikes Solo 2 is reinvented by Erdal Inci.
Posted By Sean Gandini At 23:36 • Comments (3)

15 January 2011

Science, Juggling, Dinosaurs!

Just finished a week of shows for the Young Scientist & Technology Exhibition in Dublin. A great event where second level students from Ireland show their science projects and enter a competition.

As well as the main area for the display of the projects, the exhibition had an arena for science related shows, and other attractions like robot fights!

In our shows we performed a series of routines and explained the technology behind our glow-clubs.

We have to thank the organizers and the technicians for running the event smoothly. And a special thank you to Julian Reynolds (Owen's dad) for putting us in contact with the organizers.

Posted By Iñaki At 18:04 • Comments (1)

16 December 2010

Blue Moon

There is a beautiful time between projects where one can indulge one's folie des grandeurs. A few weeks where one can count throws and compete against oneself. It's when juggling is at its most exhilarating yet most absurd. Just one's juggling friends and the big gym space.

The opening pattern in the video is (6p,6x), ...Over the last few years we have been playing with lifting the self in order to facilitate putting more objects into the air. And yet deep down there is a sense of this being cheating, that the Russian circus way is better...
In this video there is a bit of both, 18 ring gorillas appear the Russian way, with the feedees doing 7p5 and the other way, with the feedees doing (6p, 6x).

This is an ongoing debate in the company, which one of these ways is most conductive to long runs, and which one is most aesthetic...The results often tiptoe a mixture of aesthetics, geometry, longevity and sore hands...

I say Russians but actually the pioneers of this kind of large scale ring passing are the Chen Brothers, the Nanjing acrobatic troupe, i assume that they no longer perform i wonder what become of them!, i heard a rumour that they retired and are living in Vegas...I suppose that is what is supposed to happen to us jugglers, we retire and move to Vegas...

Posted By Sean Gandini At 21:04 • Comments (1)

Middle Eastern Juggling

Jugglers Yo-yoist Arron Sparks run a glow group out in the Sharjah for us this december. You can read his impressions on this here. He has also released the first yo-yo i-phone application with Sam Veale which can be found here.
Posted By Sean Gandini At 20:46 • Comments (0)

09 December 2010

Social Siteswaps Patterns looking for a home

There is a great sense of relief, of letting go when one has finished a large project. That is also the fascinating time when things take on a life of their own, assume an independent identity.

And so we finally release Social Siteswaps. Looking from the outside there is alternative narrative to the film...
a life which is away from the numbers and looping canons...
the inside of a Tom Waits song...notational emergence layered on a backdrop of trained circus animals...every orbital pathway matched by a showgirl or Strongman...3p3p11 layered
onto the promise of Belarusian erotic antipodism...1970s mime clowns love-lost in Shanghai hotel rooms...pigeon parades...

It's like a large box full of small dreams - toy dreams - of places where one opened unfinished shopping centers-
of backstage areas like constructions sites - of endless car journeys across the American Midwest - of all the time one waits before performing for 7 minutes -
Thats how it all seems right now....

Probably its just a bunch of numerical patterns looking for a home.

Social Siteswaps is available here.

Posted By Sean Gandini At 22:37 • Comments (2)

07 December 2010

Mathematical Equation

More witty equations here.
Posted By Iñaki At 20:09 • Comments (2)