JugglingSubculture.com

Michel Vandegaer is an artist who suggests viewing his sketches, “with vague sleepy eyes, instead of looking for nice details ’cause there aren’t any.”

Sleepily check out this sketch he simply calls “The Juggler”.

We like quite a few things about the juggler in this sketch:

1. He’s clearly street performing
2. He’s got a great smile on his face
3. He’s owning that 5-club cascade (not often represented in fine art!)

Overall, we appreciate the way Vandegaer truly expresses the joy of juggling in this simple sketch.

Another great tribute to often overlooked street performers!

Venice Beach Artists is a blog forged by Nowhere Man, one of the performers frequently found on the sandy sidewalk himself. Nowhere Man has begun the task of cataloging the menagerie of unique characters along this classic Los Angeles boardwalk.

Rick the Juggler, one of the performers featured on Venice Beach Artists, has been juggling at Venice Beach for over four years.

Nowhere Man treats him, and each of his subjects (from the members of the Hare Krishna Cultural Center to Tony B. Concious the self-proclaimed “Ghetto Van-Go”), with a refreshing level of honor and respect.

Street performing is often misunderstood by the general public.

We were happy to find this article in the World Journalism Institute’s Times Observer that paints a positive picture of busking–giving respect to artists who chose to show their skills on the street.

As the article puts it:

Despite the common perception, many street performers are neither homeless nor uneducated but trained professionals who take their job seriously and survive off of their skill.

Here’s the video that went with the article:

Colombia has been especially hard hit by the world’s current financial challenges. An article on CCTV.com explains that many Colombians in the city of Bogota are turning to street performing for two reasons: to make a living, and to make people smile in a desperate time.

Juggler Angel Rubiano said, “We keep working. As you see we are all in the mood to work, make some money and improve this art, despite the fact that the country is in crisis. We don’t want to be part of the crisis and we are working here to make you laugh and fill you with emotions and sensations.”

One of the ways they perform is by jumping in front of traffic at red lights and putting on a 30 second show. It’s a pretty intense form of street performing; and even though we’re pretty sure you’d get you thrown in jail in America for doing something like that, it makes us wonder about other outside-the-box ideas performers can make a few extra bucks in this difficult time.

Here’s a video of some red-light street performers in Bogota:

Remember how we suggested that everybody needs a good rola bola?

Here’s a video of JynxedJuggler practicing a nice knife-juggling rola bola routine to put into his street show.

We like the jump start, it sort of scared us the first time we watched it. Keep up the practice Jynxed, we think you’ve got something here!

I performed my first street show of the season today at Seaport Village in San Diego.

I got off to a late start this year for a few reasons:

1. May was supposed to be my retooling month but I ended up putting in a million extra hours at my “real job“.
2. I have been dealing with some colds over the past couple of weeks so I haven’t been at my physical peak.
3. Acclimating to my new clubs threw me off more than I thought it would.

Despite these factors I decided to go out today no matter what. Sure it’s a Thursday afternoon and no one will probably be there. Sure I haven’t practiced much lately and my show might turn into a drop-fest. Sure I could be spending my time getting my car to pass smog. But no. Today was the day.

And it  turned out surprisingly well! I did one show (did the old “quit while I was ahead” routine) and had a healthy crowd of about 75 people stick around for 45 minutes. They crowd was fairly responsive to the show, I had less flubs than I thought I would my first time out for the season, and a little kid named Esteban ended up stealing the show.

I’m very pleased with the first show of the season and look forward to tweaking it for the summer days ahead.

(By the way, the picture above isn’t my crowd. It’s just a shot of Seaport Village to show you where I was.)

David Rosdeitcher is one of those people you hear about whenever you say you’re a street performer. It usually goes like this:

“You street perform? I once saw a guy who could tell everyone in the audience what their zip code was. It was amazing! Can you do that?!”

It’s always a little humbling.

Here’s an article about Zipcode Man and how he got his start as a street performing juggler before finding his niche as a memorization phenomenon.

Makes you wonder what skill you have that could turn your act into something truly different and amazing.

Simon Cowell, of American Idol fame, moonlights as a judge on Britain’s Got Talent where he expressed this philosophy on what it takes to be an entertaining juggler:

No one’s interested in a juggler unless there’s a good chance he’s going to kill himself.

Obviously those who view juggling as purely sport would balk at such a comment, but it’s an interesting thing to think about for anyone putting together a juggling show for the street.

Here’s one guy who Simon was very impressed with:

Memorial day has come and gone making it officially street performing season. If you’re a juggler and you’ve never experienced the thrill of trying to make money on the street you are missing out on one of my favorite parts of the juggling subculture.

It always surprises me how many talented jugglers are unwilling to bring their juggling to the street. I’m a firm believer that anyone, at any skill level, with any performance style, can put together a successful street show and even make a little money on the side.

If your interested in street performing but don’t know where to start let me recommend Street Theatre a DVD put together by Peter Shatalow. I’ve always thought that the best way to build your own show is to watch as many other performers as possible. This DVD allows you to do just that with clips from 22 different street acts (including my favorite The Jim Show) interspersed with tips and advice from the performers.

I had my first street shows of the season last weekend and all of the drama, the nervousness, the thrills, and, ultimately, the satisfaction of performing on the street has all flooded back into my veins. I can’t wait for next week!

Get out there and give street performing a shot today!

What’s better than a DVD of Japanese Jugglers? How about a video of a Japanese juggler wearing a kilt and performing to bagpipe music!

If you’d like to see him play the bagpipes click here.