the Way of the Showman

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 school approach versus the swedish current time school's approach.-and we end on the open qustion: How can we "make" "artists working within the medium of circus and performance?Support the show...If 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...If 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...If 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...If 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...If 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...If 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

How does juggling props get made from possibility to reality. Siteswap and juggling notation colour notation for pattern. Deepening the conversation about colour and Juggling. In painting, sculpture and design colour is SO well researced which makes the task of quesiotning juggling and colour quite intimidation. Placing juggling in art context. the response from the juggling community sparked imagination. Everyone had an idea of what should be explored. Jay needed to be the one to do it. Ivar Hakscher's influence pushing all the boundaries to their logical conclusion. LImiting the show to juggling VIA buying lights. Realising light is its whole other field. But wasnst after light show. The significance of it happening in an art gallery. Externalizing the concepts in the juggling. People thought of even the set as art. Desiring to connect to more people. Make declarative statement. Not just juggling with coloured objects and letting the audience make their on interpretations. Blowing the mind of a newpaper reporter. What to tell the audience. Called another sunset to give the audience a subtle way to grasp the show. Links:Here is the full documentary show of Another SunsetSupport the show...If 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 episode I get Jay Gilligan to tell me about the incredible process that led him to the realisation of his latest show Another Sunset. From having to make props and get special balls hand sewn and hand dyed in colours never seen before in a juggling context.We talked in previous episode in season 2 about a year long process we had making Jay's show REFLEX, which by the way will be touring North America this autumn (2023).  This process for his exploration of colour I was only part of the last year, even though one of our very first conversatio in Las Vegas before the pandemic as about colour and juggling. I am as always thrilled to talk to Jay, there are few performers who puts in as much work as he does in pushing the art of juggling into completely new realms.I hope you enjoy it!Support the show...If 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 Mario and I talk about his upcoming season in Edinburgh, he's ordered 10.000 clown noses. We talk about play and bringing up kids on the road. We talk quite a bit about family. I try to pry secrets from his process of creating emotionally engaging and unusually deep acts by getting him to tell me about his Pixar looking lamp robot act. We talk about teachers, artist like Alexander Caulder, Andy Warhol and others. Art that hits you in the heart like a hammer. About how to speak your heart, the why, we do it, not just how. Which of course is so close to my heart. The whole second season of the Way is about the why I do what I do. We talk alittle bit about AI. and about making sure the audience leaves taking something to heart.AND ROBOTS. We talk about Mario's wonderful robots.Find a way to put your passion into your show. Great art comes from the ground up. Style and aestethics. Defining your character. Believing in something greater than yourself. How to stay more at home as kids gets older. There is so much good stuff here. I hope you enjoy it.Support the show...If 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

Jay Gilligan and I begin our second kitchen conversation talking about the importance of documenting ones work and process and also our ongoing work in how to do this. We talk about the importance of listening back on conversations, youll be surprised at how much you missed.unpacking details you've read, or that emerge in a conversation, into a whole season of episodes, or a whole book.First day of juggling class at the circus school and the requirements for learning.Don't limit yourself too soon. Arrive ready to grow.The goals of a circus or art education.There's never enough time for everythin.How we change over time. The struggle to be a good father/human.Jay changing as a teacher over the decades. Are his early methods bullshit?academics and circus.Ivar Heckshcher: plant the seeds for what you want them to understand so the students will have the tools to grasp it, not necesarrily now, but when THEY are ready.Jay and I have walked far along the Way of the Showman and we keep meeting people at the beginning of their path.I really appreciate you taking the time to read this. I don't think many people do. Support the show...If 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