the Way of the Showman

In this episode I ask Jay Gilligan to tell me about how he makes his ideas concrete to his students at the circus school in Stockholm.-How  this relates to performance abstract and concrete or narrative-Circus appears frivolous when seen in most cases, academic thought in universities might make contributions to unpacking how its not, but this academization of circus as a subject might impinge on the students who, arguably, most of all are there because they need a foundation of technical skill.-Clarity of artistic expression.-Making choices-What should I do first?-Doubt and indecision-Do something then ask: do I like that? if answer is yes, more on. If answer is no ask yourself: Why don't I like it.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episoe I try to get Ivar Hackscher and Jay Gilligan to help me further my understanding about the difference between concrete and abstract performance. The topic is complex and our routes into its terrain circuitous.Some of the topics touched on:-Necessity, freedom and play.Arthus Zajonc's book Meditation as contemplative inquiry-How does thoughts and words pop into our minds as response to stimuli from the world or even ourselves?-A juggling exercise where one juggler has to respond to a short juggling trick done by another juggler with a juggling trick of their own. Like a no rule juggling dialogue.-How this question of what comes next in a dialogue relates to plant morphonogy and metamorphosis-Audience sacrifices time and attention when watching a performancethought, feeling and action.-Finding a line of inquiry and following it to the end - conclusion.-It's time to let artforms use us artists rather than the other way around.-What does each artform want to express?Each one has a sweet spot for what it expresses.-Can we expect audiences to ever reliably see in our work what we put, or think we put into it?-on the difference between pictures and performance.-Act as Organism-The attraction we have to watching skill is similar to the attraction we feel towards watching ideas thought through to the end.-whats the place for virtouosity today?-300 years ago people wanted to see perfection. This is not as key today. They want something real.emotional telegraphing is particularly attractive today. Maybe more so than technical skill.-Life and warmth in performance-Perfect means that something is done. Finished.-We dont listen to hear that final chord.-Rennesaince music often ends open ended-Joan Miro and Jackson Pollock and the relation of meaning, intent and ideas in abstract art-Jackson Pollock was a dancer more than a painter. The paintings are what's left behind after his dances. So full of will and action.-I see so much abstract art which doesnt say anything to me.-Juggling IS abstract so to just juggle is NOT TAKING ANY CHOICES-Abstract with inteniton. If we notice intention its no longer "abstract nonsense"-If you dont have intention and that's not visible then we get confused work.-Why is there so little intent isible in so much abstract work?-A lot of artists get away with being lazy.-Artists often rely on the structures of the artform like the way an audience sits in a theatre and necesarrily have to watch the show unfolding in time and must assume that each thing that happens on the stage is related to what came beforSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode Jay Gilligan and I talk to the wonderful teacher and artist Ivar Hacksher in his house. We talk about many things, but the underlying flavour is about making choices in art and life.some of the things we talk about:- the importance of not knowing.-making things and ideas concrete too soon.-Olle and Sarah from the stockholm gallery "Den Fantastiska platsen" ( the fantastic place) have as their business statement that the company is about having fun.-Where is the space for saying I don't know these days? -Ivar was part of starting a school which did not have a plan of what the students would learn ahead of time. But instead they promised the swedish state that they would submit a report after the fact telling them what they had done. The state accepted this.-Paris 1920'2 people, artists meet to see what happend.- Patrons invested in arist. THis helped them take bold choices.-Feeling safe in the world is ofen a question of money.- Getting gigs to pay for cake.- American psyche vs scandinavian in regards to feeling like someone will have your back if it all fails.-On immidiate opions to then be able to move on without much emotional connection.There is no time for I dont know. We push "like" or "heart" then scroll on leaving that thing behind us in a feed and could not get back to it if we tried.-We no longer sit with experiences to find out what we feel, and think about it.-the NON cultrure of social media. Avoiding finding out what you feel.- artistic research. Not needing to always have results. Exploration for it's own sake.-some artistic work is important to have gone through, but does not produce any interesting work. -arti schools used to be places to create work. Universities was for exploration and research.- Rudolf Steiner and the importance of a philosophical foundation, or well thought out base to create work from.-the story of the woman who didn't have any ideas, who couldn't make a choice.-learning to make choices-know what to pay attention to and what notclean art. keeping to your specific task and explore within that and not dilluting it by adding stuff.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode Ivar Hackscher, Jay Gilligan, Erik Åberg and myself talk about education and abouyt being constant learners.Some of the topics we touch on:-What would be a good education for jugglers-A school does not have enough time to be completely open ended. Only your education in life will have that time, and even that does not have unlimited time.- Students at circus school are now arriving with a more passive attitude towards the education.-You cant teach something which is not asked for-John Le Hooker: I can only play what the audience has in their legs...-Getting an audience to ask question is imperative to a participative performance.-As a teacher develops in thier own exploration and development they get further and further away from the first year strudent. Can we find passion and enthusiasm to share with them what they need?-We must not forget the foundational. The skills and mind of the beginner...-You cant make others care about something your'e not passionate about yourself.-Are we stifled by the very concept of school?-Frodo talks about the conept of a triangle and how it relates to teaching and performance.-Relaxed field and play as the most free domains where human freedom is at its greatest.-the young are the bringers of the future.-meet them with the expectation to learn from them. Since we Old ones are outdated.-Midwifing ideas.-What is the intention of a "school's" project. This is important to contemplate and formulate.-How does the need to make a living factor into a schools project and responsibility.-The first stockholm circus program needed to show the state that 80% of thier students became circus artists. (I would be surprised if any other art school had results like that...)-Fairness is not that everyone gets the same or have the same needs.-Ivar found a new and stronger dimension of freedom as a teacher when he was invited to be a teacher at the circus pilot project.--You must listen so carefully to the students that you can assist them in coming into their own. Listen in a way that will aid them in coming into their own future.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode there are four of us talking. The audio is not quite what you have gotten used to on this high budget, high fidelity broadcasting operation, but the content is as golden as ever.It's a free flowing conversation around the topics of education, sharing our knowledge and how listening makes us better human beings.some of the topics we cover:-Claim expertice even if it is just: I am the king of this napkin.\-Listening is the key to all relationships.-Teachers and students are eachothers coaches.the Lader of Engagement: CURIOSITY, INTEREST, LOVE (I find this comment of Ivar's to be particular fruitful and thought provoking. I don't know how all of you will take it, but this way of looking at engagement has been useful to me in my thinking and conversations since this)-the big scissors-a circus school thrives when teachers take real interest in each other.-the need for a shared foundation - what are we shaping students into.-the Challenge of circus schools-4 points for any collaborative project:§-common idea of what you are doing.§-You must get Happy from working with that idea§-When seeking collaborators they should be as unlike you as possible.§-every netto you create must be given away.-you cant be a capitalist and artist at the same time-you must give away - share - not grasp and take-give away more than you take-Love is like this-Giving withoug expecting return will give return-the learning relationship. Students tend to be passive and receptive in their attitude. But needs to be selfmotivated and engaged for learning to happen.- does school as a framework set up the wrong expectations?-how to mediate the knowledge gap between teacher and student?-the students all have their own inner content and skills which must be engaged in dialogue with the teacher.-the word school is greek and means break, as in the time spent between sessions of work. Where we break bread, eat some olives and have a drink of wine and talk the real talk.-how do we set up the perfect situation for growth to happen?- hunter gatherer bands learn through play and mixed age relationships-On the importance of seeing the students for who they really are and what lives inside them.-trust and confidence- to connect to adolescents you need to be Interesting-reputation-Ivar tells his students when we come to class tomorrow you must have questions. If not I will leave.-questions create dialogue. The learning comes alie. Self motivation is key in learning just like in play, since learning is a form of play.-Education is always self education-East German 1981 circus schoolSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode I continue my conversation with Mac King. We start out talking about Shows and performing but end up talking about books. SO, the last part of this episode is possibly the first episode of a spin off book club, where Mac and Frodo talks about books NOT relating to performing.Topics we touch on:-On performing almost exlusively in one venue-Frodo doing more long form Shows-Does Mac ever want to make a new Show?-Working on ALL the details.-Mastering all the details.-What did Mac do creatively during the pandemic?-Digital Shows-(Im (one of) Mac's Wife's favorite acts. :-)-Pandemic talkshow online-Connecting and Playing with friends-Funny Family-On Mac moving from Harries Casino to Excalibur-Shows not made for kids but that still good for kids-On being offensive.-People understand your intent as a person, if you are playful and authenticallly don't mean offence you can go far. Sometimes. -About getting better through  comments from smart friends. -Book club:Mac: Nero Wolf detective series by Rex Stout-on male friendsFrodo: Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption by Stephen KingHumankind: a hopeful history Rutger BregmanFall; or, Dodge in Hell by Neal StephensonSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode I get to have a conversation with an absolute legend of magic. He has had his own show in Las Vegas for more than 20 years! Just try and picture that. He reached out expressing his appreciation for the podcast and I hopped on the opportunity to ask him to join me for a stroll along the Way and this is part one of that. As you'll hear, he's the real deal. I really hope you'll enjoy this, I certainly did.topics we touch on:-Max Maven-Nick Difatte introduced Mac to the Way when they were driving to LA. And there were tears...-The beginning of the podcast and what was going on under the Pandemic-It was a dark time.-About changing the Show as we get older/change as people.-About being a Belgian viking when starting out.-Andy Kaufmann-Entertainment by unease-Taking the Audience on a journey. Thinking of the Show as a whole.-The very beginning of Mac's act-The arc of tricks vs the arc of the Show. Transitioning from one trick to the next.-the quirk of "blowing your funky minds"-Stealing like an artist. So that the originator loves it, and maybe doesnt even recognice it.-Watching stand up comedians for structural inspiration.-Mac says he's only "doing what magic books says..."-Being awkward yet authentic.-Me sharing early nudges from other magician to develop tricks into acts.-Making it better one beat at the time. -And getting into a headspace where you are LOOKING for ways for the Show to tie together. Callbacks.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

This is the second part of my conversation with juggle, inventor and thinker Erik Åberg. We talk about a whole range of interesting topics and I marvel at the depth of thought Erik shares with me.we talk about:Archiving as artistic practice.Paul Cinquevalli.Juggling history is the past, juggling today can be observed, the possible future explored by Erik is his kinetic sculptures.How to ask existential questions through juggling.Why should juggling exist?Erik sketches out two possible answers based on his 20.000 archval clippings about Paul Cinquevalli. Following the descriptions by critics and reviewers Erik finds two main lines of answers1 - Paul Cinquevalli is the greatest juggler in the world and is comparable to Shakespeare and Ninjinski.2 - He is a manifest example of wasting ones life away on purposeless activities.In this way Erik demonstrates the interlinking and usefullness of the archival part of his practice. As a show only exist as experience the reviews and quotes become like fossilized represantations of the experience of the shows. The fact that Cinquevalli was so famous that it generated 1000's of quotes gives us a pretty strong representation of what these Show experiences were like.Why is skill so captivating to us humans?Michael Moschen's idea of the kill. How our paleolithic ancestors deeply valued the kill with a spear or sling of an animal. Ivar Hacksher - life is difficult an endless dynamically unstable situation and when we successfully surf through it we get a deep sense of completion.Creating a microscoping focus of Attention. The performer focuses the Attention of the many, creating a collective experience.Enriching the Audience.Current evidence points to early juggling as being only cascade patterns and not sequences of tricks.Eriks wonderful theory of Transportational Activities.Links:Erik Åberg's Ghost CubesErik and Jay Gilligan's juggling show BevisErik and Jay's juggling show BlickA more biographical interview with Erik for those who want to get to know him a little more.A short podcast about Paul Cinquevalli from Smithsonian MagazineSupport the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

In this episode we bring you the first part of a conversation with Erik Åberg who at the time of recoring is writing his Ph.D about juggling. He is an extraorinary juggler with a wonderful way of thinking and finding real deep questions about juggling, writing, researching, archiving, and answering them in illuminating ways.We start out talking about how it is to write a ph.d about juggling. He is seeking to grasp his process and to describe an actual practice which could then reliably be used to create work. How ideas pop up AFTER you have worked hard on them, whilst doing something else. How to break down what you're doing into components and then make them geometrical. Ghost cubes. Moveable sculture which allows sculptures happen in time. His work on Headrolls.Making archiving and intellectual work into part of your artistic process.His epiphany that the reality of anything we create be it a book a show or a sculpture resides in the spectators experience. The importance of asking what this experience is.How the experience of a sculpture and a performance relate and differ.Who owns time in the experience of art?Three dimensions of time and participation in the artistic experience.Links:Erik Åberg's Ghost CubesErik and Jay Gilligan's juggling show BevisErik and Jay's juggling show BlickA more biographical interview with Erik for those who want to get to know him a little more.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo

The best version of a juggling show was the written verision, or the told version of the show. The reason he chose to speak in the show was to make it more relatable. Be direct. Deliberatly casual. Every spectator gets to choose their favorite colour from a tray. Human interest and a genuie meeting of people. Choosing music. the process of making the juggling. The feeling of seeing and throwing a skin coloured ball. Joseph Albers and the movement of colour. Describing the different acts with focus on how they relate to colour and the very particularly created props. Using Joseph Albers ideas as inspiration for the balls and rings. LIght, colour, wavelengths, sunsets on different planets. Bringing it all together with a toy that changes colour into a musical note and the cards the audince chose when the show started. We think we know what something is, but as we go through the show they are morpring dramatically from favorite colour to sunset on a different planet, to musical note. How we choose to view something has a significant effect on our reality. A rainbow exists when you are there to see it, but not if youre not there. Reality is relational. The show is a relation so like a rainbow it was only there because of the encounter between juggler and audience in an art gallery.Links:the full docomentary and show of Another Sunsetthe full show without the interviews and commentaries.Support the show...Now you can get t-shirts and hoodies with our wonderful logo. This is the best new way to suport the podcast project. Become a proud parader of your passion for Showmanship and our glorious Craft whilst simultanously helping to gather more followers for the Way.You'll find the store here: https://thewayoftheshowman.printdrop.com.auIf you want to help support this podcast it would be tremendous if you wrote a glowing review on iTunes or Spotify.If you want to contact me about anything, including wanting me to collaborate on one of your projects you can reach me on thewayoftheshowman@gmail.comor find out more on the Way of the Showman website.you can follow the Way of Instagram where it is, not surprisingly thewayoftheshowman.If you find it in you and you have the means to do so, you can suport the podcast financially at:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/captainfrodo