Gandini

No Exit was not strictly a Gandini Juggling show; instead, it was performed under the company name of K-DNK. This company was a one-off collaboration between circus director John-Paul Zaccarini, bounce-juggler and musician John Blanchard, Sean Gandini, and Kati Ylä-Hokkala. The four collaborators came together, funded by a Jerwood Circus Award, to explore bounce juggling and the creation of a more explicit dramaturgy.

No Exit, based on Jean-Paul Sartre’s play Huis Clos, explored shifting acts of competition and perversity between three characters trapped within a closed world. The interactions between the characters were expressed through an explicit characterisation of the three performers, with Gandini taking on a partic- ularly perverse figure. This was darker territory than Stop Breaking My Balls (2002) and also utilised various pieces of set to assist in indicating the claustrophobic world of the characters. This set was composed of a series of three-dimensional triangular boxes, painted in Mondrian-inspired block colours, and two large tables. These formed the primary surfaces on which the rhythmically compelling bounce juggling was executed.

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


THE TEAM

Director: JP Zaccarini
Lighting Designer: Jean-Ba Laude
Music by: Silver Filter/John Blanchard
Performers: Guy Bellingham, John Blanchard, Sean Gandini, Kati Ylä-Hokkala