Projects for the next two years, contributors needed
Hello, ladies and jengglemen. I am beginning work on two overly-large pieces of juggling media that are intended to provide comprehensive (or at least expansive) presentation of the history, philosophy, personalities, methodology, props, language, and physiology of juggling in an accessible format for both beginning and experienced practitioners. To that end, I have begun rudely nudging my peers for their input, which brings us to this post.
The first is a book, motivated by my inability to locate a suitable text on the subject either at local stores or online. I haven't checked up in a while, so possibly things have changed- at the time, only Dancey's Compendium and Kit Summers' Juggling With Finesse seemed close to what I was searching for, and neither contained modern information on the state of juggling exploration and execution. Some amount of helpful and interesting academic papers are floating around, as well as Ben Beever's Guide to Juggling Patterns, but in the case of the papers they are sometimes difficult to find and can be overly niche due to format, or opaque. GtJP is politely describable as "technically correct" but is also, at least from my perspective, far too deep in the bits and bobs across the text for the average reader, particularly nowadays. It also does not contain much peripheral information about people, props, or what have you.
Since the eras of those earlier efforts, we have developed new props (magnetics, holes in, etc), new skills (dotted patterns, non-standard machine patterns, high-level poi juggling, etc), new technical heights (Alex Barron, me [lol], those other folks, etc), new methods (Greg Kennedy's cyclone, tethered balls pushed horizontally, etc), and so on. Every discipline has advanced significantly, but the literature has not been updated to reflect current capabilities and ideas. Either that, or it has and I should do research BEFORE posting...but ain't nobody got time for that, kupo.
Sadly, I do not have the entirety of juggling contained in my head. Excitingly, it's a great opportunity to learn some more and interact with colleagues and contemporaries! My forte is creatively technical exploration with 3-6 balls, and although I'm familiar with many of the older generation's luminaries and some amount of the newer crowd as well as technical developments, I have been detached from any diligent study of the scene for some while and have never been a history buff, so there'll be a few gaps to fill in.
What I'm hoping from you, dear reader, is that you are a person with knowledge; some awareness of rare technique or patterns, fundamental concepts, the sociology and/or philosophy of circus v. casual operation, methodology, or origin points of popular patterns (e.g. Seb's Mess, Frostbite, Will Penman's Hurricane series [it's a trap!]), and so on. Do you know about things like Lorq's TechTiles? Are you Lorq? Do you have insight into frameworks for motion such as poi gridding or throw leveling? Or, alternatively, do you know where to point for resources on these types of things? I imagine some amount of this type of information has made its way onto various forums, but I have not generally maintained a vigorous presence at such hubs. If you know things (even if it's only one thing) that would be useful and/or interesting for juggler of skill level x to have access to in a print resource, I'd like you to reconsider your life choices...no, no...I meant share your experience with me. Yeah, that's it! Call me! Valerieeeee!
The second half of the (you forgot?) projects is a behemoth video meant to be a sequel to 2006's "Siteswaps" by the esteemed Gandini crew and friends. If you are not familiar with that body of work, it is available for free online (vimeo iirc) and is what I would call mandatory viewing. It was originally a dvd collection, and is still purchasable as such if you would like to support them that way. So, despite having 11 hours of footage, the amount of depth in pattern exploration Siteswaps has is surprisingly low. Nowadays we have a plethora of technically adept jugglers both professional and amateur, and thanks to instagram (my handle is jameschance), youtube, and other platforms, we have content. We have quick and enthusiastic peer review. We have an incredible amount of experimental, exploratory, or technical juggling on display, to the extent that it can be difficult to keep up with the output. However, to my awareness there has not been a video resource of comparable length and depth to Siteswaps created since. Then again, I'm somewhat out of the loop.
At any rate, the purpose of such a video would be to highlight more complex extrapolations and permutations of pattern than were shown in Siteswaps, to give a structured but informal presentation of that information with appropriately interesting (instrumental) scoring, and to also offer some insight into the process of siteswap selection or pattern mutation (e.g. how does one get from cascade through mess to revenge, or what makes a pattern "interesting" vs "beautiful"), as well as to showcase esoteric and/or technically challenging techniques and patterns.
Much video footage is pre-existing thanks to the tireless posting of juggling to various media repositories, but would require permissions and filtering. I am technically capable of recording a large part of the footage as a sole performer, albeit exclusively with balls; I'd rather not subject the public to 20 uninterrupted hours of my face, though- plus, many people are doing amazing things in the juggling space and deserve to be shown to a wider audience. Finally, every second of video that's already recorded is one less to spend finding a location, setting up a film rig (even if it's a phone), doing the shoot, editing for length, etc.
Obviously, this will take a long while to coalesce, let alone edit. There are undoubtedly more qualified individuals than myself to perform both the social and technical labors required to first organize engagement and eventually compile and platform the completed work. Unfortunately, they are apparently busy doing other things. Nonetheless, I feel that the juggling world is long overdue for a encyclopedic treatise of non-standard, long, and rarely-seen siteswaps in all their modulated glory, and intend to record some version of this regardless of my disadvantaged position, provided the end result is sea-worthy. Firmly the secondary priority behind book for now, but that may change depending on feedback.
If you frequent more than one platform, you may see this message reposted there in the near future. I imagine FB will have some activity, IG is primarily via DM, and possibly some other websites. Apologies in advance for the blanketing, but you'll know to overlook it in future as "that bloody long shpiel from the yank" or, I dunno, whatever they say like that where you're from. I appreciate any helpful direction toward existing resources that would not be easily found via web search, and look forward to telling you in two years that it's going to be another two years. Au revoir, olive oil, reservoir, attache, and konbanwa to all my Australian blokes.