Gandini

Cube (2000) is distinctive in Gandini Juggling’s repertoire by having, as its creative starting point, not juggling patterns nor choreographic ideas but, instead, a single piece of set and the possibilities that this offered the jugglers. Constructed for the company’s work at the Millennium Dome, the piece of set in question was a 2.52m steel-framed, glass-walled cube. Up to two jugglers could enter ‘the Cube’, via a door in its roof and, once inside, could proceed to juggle silicon balls by bouncing them off one or more sides of the Cube. Bounce juggling is a long-standing subset of juggling techniques and, over the years, there have been a number of jugglers using large-scale objects as surfaces on which to juggle, as well as bouncing patterns off multiple surfaces. The Cube was an exten- sion of this by completely enclosing a juggler within a structure whose surfaces they could bounce balls off.

Gandini Juggling’s initial experiments in the Cube were principally conducted by Sean Gandini, Kati Ylä-Hokkala, and guest juggler John Blanchard. It was Blanchard in particular who did much to advance the possibilities of the Cube, in particular following what he identifies as a ‘chuck it and see’ method of creating new tricks. This more instinctive mode of choreography, in contrast with Gandini Juggling’s usual meticulous and mathematically driven processes of testing new patterns, gave Cube a certain increased frisson of risk. This was reinforced by the visually striking sight of two jugglers, in close proximity to one another, bouncing up to five balls each around their bodies.

Performances of Cube were often in festival contexts or in commercial environ- ments such as shopping centres. For these performances, the company used bright orange balls, coupling the juggling with rhythmically dynamic music. Each ball bouncing off multiple sides of the cube in one throw made for an irregular sound rhythm. This meant that the throws could not be strictly choreographed in time to music and, as such, the music the company used served to create a general mood rather than work closely with the juggling patterns.

(orginal text from Juggling Trajectories, Gandini Juggling 1991 – 2015 by Thomas J M Wilson - link to shop)


PRESS

“The Cube is just that—a transparent box that Kati Ylä-Hokkala and Sean Gandini stand inside which allows them to rebound rubber balls off the walls in front and behind, and which has the useful second effect of child- proofing the performance zone. Its means of dramatic escalation is the age-old One More Ball callout, but on the whole The Cube is relaxed in its tone and presentation—seemingly as an expression of the performers’ own personalities rather than as an aspect of feigned character.” Side Show Circus Magazine


THE TEAM

Director: The Company
Performers: John Blanchard, Sean Gandini, Jay Gilligan, Chris Sly, Kati Ylä-Hokkala


VIDEO