Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

While at the Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts a while back I got to hanging out with visual artist Scott E. Hill a fair bit and talking about the ‘Artistic Process.’ Now Scott’s a painter and it’s a bit like comparing apples and oranges to try and compare a juggling show to a painting, but there are similarities in the way I approach each performance as though it was a blank canvas and the way he takes his brushes to a blank canvas to create the works of Art that were on sale in his booth.

The piece above is a part of a larger piece called “Pursuit.” Scott’s work is dark and moody work that often involves Penny Farthing Bicycles and/or Trains.

So… A visual artist starts with a blank canvas of some sort, and a performance artist starts with an open stage of some sort. I was thinking about this more in Oklahoma City because I was doing Street Style shows and it really did feel like I was starting from scratch with nothing and creating a show from the ground up…

The Street is great in that you really are crafting something from virtually nothing, and there’s a different kind of satisfaction in it than in a performance at a trade show, corporate event or theatre. I think perhaps I got addicted to that feeling of crafting something out of nothing and never quite move past it to fully embrace other performance venues as strongly as I might, but that’s just part of my DNA as a performer. Some artists paint with their fingers, some use brushes, I choose to tap into my Street Performance heritage no matter what stage I’m on.

The sheer act of gathering a crowd, of convincing a group of passers by to stop because you can convince them that you’ve got something worth watching also helps layer the experience for both the performer and the audience. All of a sudden, there’s more at stake, you’ve got more to prove and if you don’t prove yourself that audience will simply walk away. So you dance and you weave, you present the tricks and crack funny with the jokes. Typically you build to some sort of finale, audience and performer feel a release and the show comes to an end.

For a live performance artist, the canvas is as much a moments in time as it is the stage he’s working on. Sure you can capture the moments on a video, preserve them for all time, but video only goes so far to capturing the experience. The real beauty and artistry is to create something in that chosen moment which is very specific to the people in that particular audience… Those choices and that audience are a once in a lifetime opportunity and there’s a beauty and poetry in that which though fleeting is magical.

In the end a painter has a finished painting to show for his work, a performer, often just the memory of the show… I sometimes long for more of a record of the shows I’ve done, some sort of tangible, put my finger on it and touch it, object to keep as a record of those moments in time that I’ve got to play in – perhaps this is why I’ve gravitated towards shooting video and still images of other performers… It’s not the same as being there in the moment, but in some small way perhaps it’ll help keep the memory of those moments alive a bit longer…

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Where in the world am I today?: Beijing, China

Being back in China again is a hoot! Actually being just anywhere in the world is a hoot if you take/make/create the time to look around and see/enjoy a bit of the place you’re visiting. I was talking to my neighbour who works in marketing a while back about how he often travels across the country or around the world only to go to business meetings in the conference room of the hotel that he’s staying at but never actually gets to see much of these great cities he’s visiting. That conference room could be any conference room in any hotel in any city around the world…

I think part of why I like what I do so much is that it has given me chances to travel to some pretty amazing places and experience some pretty amazing things apart from the actual performances. I don’t think I take advantage of this as much as I might… My friend Jon Hicks came out to Vancouver last year to perform at the PNE as part of the Street Stars Program and very deliberately extended his stay in Vancouver for a week beyond when the job had ended so that he and his wife could spend a week wandering around and exploring some of what Vancouver had to offer.

Jon bought a bicycle and borrowed one from us for his wife and they made a point of getting out and seeing something different every day and getting to know the city a bit. Wonderful! And if you’re given the opportunity to visit a new place, why not give yourself a bit of extra time if you can to see more than just the conference room of a hotel room or the venue where you happen to be performing.

I’ve been lucky over the years to have adventures present themselves to me on a number of occasions too. For what ever reason I’ll do a show and then someone will come up to me and offer to tour me around their town or I’ll run into a fellow performer at an event and they’ll suggest that, if work schedules permit it, we play hooky from the event we’re at and go exploring.

As we were arriving in Guangzhou a few days ago it was suggested that I spend some time wandering around the streets in the vicinity of the Hotel because of the number of interesting historic buildings, so I got up one morning and went for a bit of an explore. Sure I saw lots of cool buildings, but I also ran across this cool Ying/Yang symbol that was made from different colored stones that had been pressed into the concrete in a mosaic-like design. Very cool. It was also great to talk to a couple of people who wanted the opportunity to practice their English on me.

It wasn’t necessarily the most exotic little wander around the neighbourhood, but it got me a bit more connected with the place I happen to be and with the people who call this home and I can state with great confidence that it left more of an impression on my than the conference room of the hotel did.

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Where in the world am I today?: Shanghai, China

So I dragged my family to the opening of the new Vancouver Trade and Convention Centre last weekend primarily to see a 10 meter tall marionette made by my friend Peter Boulanger. I’ve known Peter for years and must admit to being a huge fan and at times mildly jealous of his brilliance as an inventor. Peter and his wife, Ninon, have created several new and very unique circus apparatus starting with the Tesseract which they developed after leaving Cirque du Soleil. As their projects grew in size and scope they formed The Under Ground Circus and began creating new, interesting structures to throw acrobats onto. Not only did they create the equipment they also took it upon themselves to train the acrobats! I’ve throughly enjoyed watching as each new piece debuts and comes into it’s own, but was absolutely blown away by Peter’s latest creation.

Over the course of about four weeks he took the idea for a giant marionette capable of holding up circus apparatus from concept to reality for the opening of the trade and convention centre and left people gawking in amazement. Five puppeteers operated the 10 meter tall puppet which held up two suspended circus performers in it’s hands. The short 10 minute performance was mesmerizing and the audience was left spell-bounded.

Peter looked exhausted which is completely understandable given he had some very very long nights dealing with the rigging of the marionette and must have been running on fumes. Still, he made it and the results were fantastic! I left the Exhibit Hall feeling energized and inspired by the work he had pulled off and the effect it had on the audience. Now the real challenge – take that inspiration and turn it into action as I pursue my own goals and dreams. Not sure my dreams and Peter’s are quite on the same scope, but what matters is bravely attempting the impossible for in the attempt, the impossible often becomes a reality.

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Where in the world am I today?: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

So… I’m at my 13th Circus And Magic Partnership (C.A.M.P.) program in Winnipeg and am having a blast. The program was originally conceived by the now Artistic Director of the Winnipeg International Children’s Festival, Neal Rempel, after an excursion he made to Guatemala with Clowns without Boarders. After flying to Central America and performing for folks in ‘areas of conflict’ he returned to Winnipeg determined to ‘Think Globally but act Locally‘ and create a program for youth at risk to learn skills like stilt walking, juggling, unicycle, trapeze, ariel hoop, tight rope, magic, drama, hip hop dancing, rap, drumming, art and puppetry.

I’ve been involved with the program since it’s inception and love it for all sorts of reasons. As a performer on a typical gig I’m usually asking my audiences to participate in my silliness. By contrast this program provides a chance to teach others some skills and let them bask in the glow of the spotlight while I sit on the side lines and support them in this experience. It just feels really good to give this experience to others, especially kids who come from a challenging background. For many of the kids who participate, this experience really does have an enormous impact on helping them set goals and see some pretty spectacular results by the end of the five-day program. On day five the students become the performers with all of the instructors helping co-ordinate the show and support the kids with everything that they’re presenting to the audience of family and friends who come to watch the performance. From start to finish it’s a really great experience for the kids, the instructors and the people who come to watch the Friday Show!

To top it all off the crew that Neal assembles each year is a spectacular group of performers who over the years have very much become a wonderful and at times dysfunctional family. It’s a treat to come back and play and be a part of this group and C.A.M.P really is a program that I hope I can be a part of for many years to come.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

My wife is from Japan and the japanese word for carrot is ninjin. She’ll ask me at times what my ninjin is which refers to the image of a donkey with a carrot dangling in front of it’s nose as a motivation to keep it moving forward… In the context of how my wife uses it ‘what’s your ninjin’ could be translated into what are you excited about in life at the moment. Are you pursuing a goal? Are you working towards the realization of some project? Is there a new skill that you’re working on? Are you excited about a trip that’s coming up? It could be anything really, but it’s an interesting notion about what it is that leads me through my day.

At the moment my ninjins are a mixed bag of things. I’m working on a new show that I’ll be debuting at the Pacific National Exhibition in August and working on some of the technical issues as they relate to some of the props I’m hoping to use. Then comes the challenges involved with making sure the resources are around to cover the costs of said props while keeping in balance the financial realities that are demanded by responsibilities like being a home owner, husband, father. Then comes the balance of time between the pursuit of new ideas and the work on the new show balanced with the need to stay on top of the administrative and other work required to keep the current stuff going and money coming in…

I was out for a dose of inspiration and creative thinking with my friends David Duchemin and Shawn Farquhar again yesterday. We got together a few weeks ago and I enjoy the conversation and lunch so much I asked if they’d like to do it again. So we hooked up again and it was great! We gabbed for a few hours non-stop, I came home feeling refreshed and revitalized about attacking my crop of carrots with new vim and vigor! Hopefully the conversation had a similar effect for David and Shawn. We’re all very successful at what we do, and what we do is quite different from each other but there’s just something great about getting together and exchanging ideas, listening to stories and getting fired up and inspired to continue to work hard at what you do from other creative minds.

Came home and decided to work a bit more on the prototype for the cannon I’m going to use to launch William T. Wiener from – the Hotdog equivalent to the human cannon ball. The ‘Ketchup Cannon‘ is the working title for this device at the moment and after preliminary launches yesterday in the rain it was time to take a slightly more measured approach to the launch chamber’s length as well as the appropriate pressure to use when launching said ‘Flying Frankfurter.’

OK… I’ve got to be totally honest… It’s hard to write a line like that last one and keep a straight face… Man oh man do I love that I get to do stuff like this for a living and that I can legitimately claim that today’s ninjin was all about the ‘Ketchup Cannon.’ Hello! I love my life!

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

So my boys are both enjoying their March Break at the moment and the challenge as a parent is to come up with interesting things that keep them reasonably entertained, encourage them to do more than simple plonk themselves down in front of the TV to watch a movie or play some video games and promote a some level of exercise. So it struck me that this might be the perfect opportunity to encourage my older son Koji to work on his juggling.

I’ve never really pushed what I do on my kids, though I have exposed them to it. We got a unicycle for Koji when he was about seven or eight and certainly encourage him and his younger brother Owen to give it a try. Koji seemed to take to it, Owen not so much which was fine. Koji also took a circus skills workshop with a friend from school a few years ago and was working on Diabolo as well as his unicycle skills.

A few weeks ago one of Koji’s friends was over visiting and asked if I’d teach him to juggle. I said sure and went through the basic moves involved in a three ball cascade. Prior to this Koji had shown very little interest in working on juggling as a skill, but when a friend asked me to show him how to do it, all of a sudden Koji’s interest picked up and he started throwing balls around more than I’d seen him do ever before.

So the week started out with a simple goal. Make six throws and catches successfully. He nailed that on day one. Next – make it twenty throws, and bit by bit the number of throws he was making consistently increased. His pattern is still quite sloppy and will need to smooth out a bit before I show him any of the more advanced moved, but watching him struggle with the mechanics of what’s involved and getting hooked on working on the skill reminds me of exactly how I felt when I first started to juggle when I was thirteen year’s old. Koji’s eleven, so if he sticks with it he’ll have two more years than I ever did under his belt should he ever decided to ‘go pro.’ I’ve taken such pleasure in watching him work on this skill that it’s put a great big smile on my face.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

Blessed are those moments when the skies open up and inspiration strikes…

When I started this blog back at the beginning of January I wasn’t sure if I’d run out of things to say or really be able to figure out how to say it. Being somewhat obsessive/compulsive I set up a structure for myself with hints at what subject matter I should touch on for each day of the week and it’s certainly helped me keep the ideas and the content flowing…

I’ve been on ships a fair bit since the beginning of the year and because connecting to the internet is typically slow and a bit spendy on ships I tried to get all of my ducks in a row and sometimes upload a weeks worth of posts when I had a decent internet connection at one of the ports we were visiting.

Since I got back and this week in particular I’ve been waking up and deciding what I wanted to write about based upon the mood that struck me when I sat down at the keyboard. On some levels it feels a bit more organic to write the post of the day on the day, with the mood of the day being very much a part of the workflow… Imposing a topic for the day a few days out has worked for me and has certainly allowed me to keep the content flowing, but there’s something to be said for going with the whim of what strikes on the day itself…

And now for a complete left turn topic-wise, or perhaps just going with the whim that’s just struck…

Went out for lunch with my friends David Duchemin and Shawn Farquhar yesterday. David went from being a comedy/juggler/magician to being a full time photographer a couple of years ago and Shawn is probably one of the best (if not THE best) magicians in Canada. I had two topics of conversation that I wanted to touch on over lunch. The first being the mechanics of a standing ovation and the second being the concept of creating celebrity…

The first topic, the standing ovation, was something I wanted to pry out of Shawn’s brain as he’s crafted a show where the standing ovation at the end of the show is almost automatic. Now to be honest, I’ve never really cared about all that much about getting a Standing-O, but when you’re working on ships and reports are being written back to head office about how each act went over, having the cruise director say – ‘Dave got a standing ovation’ certainly looks very good in a report and can ensure long term employment.

Shawn had some interesting ideas to share about how he primes an audience during the course of his show, plants the seed, so that if the audience liked the show they want to give him a standing ovation… I’m going to need to work on some ideas of how I can do this in a way that stays in character with the persona I present to the audience on stage, but it was great to sit down and chat with someone who’s built the structure of his show to encourage a certain response and get my brain thinking about how I could craft things for my own show…

The second topic, creating or building celebrity, was something that I wanted to offer in exchange… Shawn’s won a ton of prestigious magic awards and has had a huge influence in the magic community and although he’s well knowing in the world of magic, he hasn’t tapped into celebrity much beyond the world of magic. When asked if this was something that he wanted, his answer was a resounding – YES. I was really pleased that David Duchemin was at this lunch actually because I’ve been really impressed over the years with his ability to build celebrity for himself and then beyond building the celebrity, figuring out ways to cash in on the celebrity status that he has created for himself…

I had to run before we’d gotten too far into the concept of building celebrity but the three of us agreed to hook up again in a couple of weeks to dive into this a bit more…

The conversation is still reverberating in my brain and inspiring me to look at my own show as well as look at how what I know can help others with what they do. Not sure where it’ll lead at this point, but it feels good to have stirred up the pot a bit.

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Where in the world am I today?: Woke up in Trinidad, will go to bed in North Vancouver

I posted recently about my email addiction but I think I could take this a step further and admit to being a bit of an internet-aholic. I’m so spoiled at home to have a flat fee 24/7 WiFi connection that, when I leave home for work and I don’t have, I somehow feel cheated and require a day or two to tone down my web dependency and get back on track with other aspects of life. Things like oh I don’t know… practicing juggling, working on bits for my show, enjoying the sights and sounds of where ever it is I happen to be, but it’s not long before the monkey on my back returns and I’m looking for my hit of internet-goodness!

On the contract I’ve just finished aboard the GRAND Princess you can access the internet, but you buy an internet card for twenty bucks and it comes with a pre-determined time limit and it seems incredibly easy to burn through those minutes at an alarmingly fast rate. Especially as the connection speed isn’t the fastest in the world you end up chewing up more minutes in the accomplishment of tasks that on a speedier connection take a fraction of the time. I try to limit my use of those minutes to the very basic essentials. Zip online, download new emails, send off any I’ve written while off line then disconnect. A to B To See you later – done!

Got to Aruba on the ship recently and walked off with my computer and my iPod touch and went for a bit of a walk around prospecting for WiFi. My iPod Touch made this a bit easier because, as a hand held device with built in WiFi, I was able to check for a signal every half block or so in the hopes of finding an connection I could free-base from… Crack open my laptop, tap into the connection and get my fix of internet until my laptop’s battery died. 

There is an element of piracy to the affair and yet it seems harmless enough to track down a connecting that’s being given away and sneak aboard the WiFi Love Train… A modern day prospector for whom the pack mule and pick axe or yore have been replaced by an iPod and a laptop… There’s gold in them there ports I tells ya… WiFi GOLD!

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Where in the world am I today?: Woke up in North Vancouver, on my way to Miami then on to Barbados

Years ago while performing at the Kingston Buskers Festival I had a conversation with Mike Wood in which he stated that he was very much a “Student of the Game” meaning that he still got out and watched shows because he still felt there was a lot he had to learn. The comment really resonated with me because it reminded me that to be at the top of your game you always need to be actively moving forward and trying to make yourself better.

For years I worked as a Street Performer/Festival Performer and after hundreds and hundreds of shows I got to a place of comfort and confidence that what I was presenting had a certain quality and would appeal to an audience. Right around that time I started traveling to Japan and had to learn how, what I did, translated to a different culture and a different language. These days I seem to be working a lot of cruise ships and although I’m back to working in english the stages I work on ships are a completely different from the spaces on the street or at festivals. Ship work presents a slightly different set of challenges and I make a point of going to see all of the shows I can when I’m on a ship so I can watch and learn how different performers use the space and how they interact with their audience.. To make my show the best it can be I need to be able to tweak things to suit the specifics of the space and the expectations of the audience.

I enjoy the challenge of taking what I do into a new environment and have learned that the things I pick up from one venue can often be transferred to another thus making my show in any venue stronger. The key seems to be to have an open enough mind to realize that just because your show works well in one situation doesn’t necessarily mean that it’ll work as well in the next. Being able to have a certain flexibility, being able to listen to the feedback from others, being able to review video of your own show with a critical eye and make appropriate changes, all of these things will help.

My goal when ever I walk out in front of a crowd is to deliver the very best show I can and anything I can do to improve upon my performance is part of my responsibilities as a dedicated professional. Being a student of the game for me has little to do with how much I already know, but rather the vast amounts that there is still to learn. It’s part of what keeps the job exciting to me and motivates me to keep improving.

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Where in the world am I today?: North Vancouver, BC, Canada

So, I don’t know about anyone else out there, but the amount of time I’m spending dealing with emails seems to be slowly but surely increasing. Add to that the occasional visit to Facebook to respond to messages there (because some friends have started to use Facebook as an alternative to sending traditional emails) and hours of each day can get gobbled up.

I love the ability to stay in touch with friends and to get almost immediate answers to business inquiries and about 95% of my performance work these days comes via email inquiries, so electronic communications have become a necessity, but I just shake my head at the end of some days realizing that the biggest goal I accomplished for the day was to deal with my email inbox.

For some reason 2009 feels like a year full of possibility to me and I’ve started working on some new material and projects that require a certain time commitment that pulls me away from my computer. I’m trying to make these other interests a priority because even if I sit down at my desk for a minute to check my incoming message that minute can quickly become an hour, or two… 

This week started with me working with my sewing machine on a curtain for a prop case stand. I loved the project and was very pleased with the results, but it ended up taking up most of the day to complete (and I didn’t get to my email – boo hoo). Today I’m working on the finishing touches for a rola bola board and may do a bit of shopping for some props I’m looking at picking up…

I guess it dawned on me a while back that I call myself an entertainer, I do love my show and playing for an audience and this is how I earn my living, but if I was to calculate the amount of time that I spend actually working on my show verses the amount of time I spend responding to emails it would be a bit of an embarrassment to realize just how far out of whack I’ve let things get.

I don’t think I’m quite to the place I’d like to be yet in terms of the amount of time I’m working on my show and new material, but it does feel good to have made this realization and to be taking steps towards finding a better balance. Right then… Do excuse me… I have a few emails I have to deal with…

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Where in the world am I today?: At Sea aboard the GRAND Princess

The expression ‘To earn one’s nut,’ is an old circus term that refers to making enough money to cover one’s expenses. I found the following from a trivia site that gave the following history of the origins of the phrase –

Back to old England for the origination of this phrase. There were gypsy circuses that would travel the country, entertaining and probably stealing from the townspeople. Before the city fathers would allow them to set up camp, they would come to an arrangement as to how much the circus would pay the city for the privilege of setting up. Once this amount was agreed upon, the city fathers would take the large nut that secured one of the wagon wheels on the biggest circus wagon. 

Until the circus was able to pay the amount, they would not get their nut back, and therefore would not be able to leave town. This was how the city fathers ensured that they got what was agreed to, rather than seeing the circus skip town in the middle of the night. 

What ‘one’s nut’ is, is a very objective thing for what my be enough money for one person may be more or less than another individual needs to feel comfortable. I’ve always been a fan of –

1. figuring out what my nut is and 
2. making a little extra in case something unexpected comes up along the way

The current economic meltdown seems in part due to the fact that people set themselves an unrealistic large nut to try and achieve and when things went sideways things seemed to slid right into a recession.

The smaller your nut, the less time you have to spend worrying about it and this can vastly improve the quality of your life and the things you can do for the simple joy and pleasure that they give you.

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