Thursday workshops on hold

We've been unable to get a better time slot on Thursdays so have stopped the workshops. If we can find a local space available around 7pm on a Thursday we'll look to restart them.

Thursday workshop moves to later time

From November 7th the workshop will run from 8.30 to 10pm and will cost £4. The free Monday club swinging class (see previous blogpost) continues to run on Mondays, 7-8. Full details on workshop location are on the Thursday workshop page

Learn Club Swinging this autumn

In addition to our Thursday juggling workshops we're running FREE Monday CLUB SWINGING classes in the dance studio at the Black Prince  Community Hub / Lilian Baylis Old School site (directions here). Check out some of the videos earlier in this blog if you aren't sure what club juggling is.

The classes start next Monday 1st October with a drop-in introductory session to find out about club swinging and run weekly from 7 to 8pm (though Ali isn't available on Monday 8th so that'll be more of a practice session rehearsing the moves taught in the first week). The main block of classes will run weekly from 15 October to 19th November giving a chance to progress week by week.

The teacher is Ali Dando, an experienced teacher of club swinging. We'll also have some swinging clubs available for people attending to use.

The course are free thanks to support from 'Give it a Go' so please come along and give it a go!.

A successful first workshop

Thanks to the twenty or so people who came along to the first Southbank Jugglers workshop last week. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's workshop, partly because gorgeous Gandini Juggling have donated a load of beanbags, rings, scarves, balls and clubs for people to use at the workshop...including these Pushmi-Pullu clubs!

 People enjoyed checking out their moves in the full width mirror

 and generally jumping around while juggling clubs, whirling diabolos, spinning poi, hula-hooping and having a go at loads of stuff.

Video of the Week: Poi - Katra & Annika

Video of the Week: More of Less Juggling

There's loads of playfulness with two and three clubs in this short video. The elements of club swinging in the video also give me a chance to say that we'll be running a 'Give it a Go' weekly club swinging 'bootcamp' in October and November to give you the chance to get the fundamental moves learnt and practised. More details coming soon.

Two weeks until the first workshop

It's just two weeks to the start of the workshops on Thursday 6th September.

The website's up and running, as is Twitter and an email address. The venue's booked.

Now we're starting to get some workshop equipment together.

The photo shows the pile of props we've accumulated to date, plus Malte and Niels from Spot the Drop have said they'll donate some unwanted props they have in Germany and send them to us, while London based Gandini Jugglers are going to have a root around to see what they have. If anyone has any juggling/diabolo/poi/hulahoop items sitting unloved in cupboards we'd love to give them a new lease of life.

We're starting to get some leaflets out and about. The Mayor of London's Freesport scheme provided 10 posters and 100 A5 leaflets that can be overprinted, so I spent an enjoyable couple of hours trying to get the black text to fit in the spaces provided in between the blue headers on the leaflets and now feed each leaflet one at a time into my printer as it won't accept a stack of A5. Hopefully we'll end up with 80 decent leaflets to put out. I've also run off a couple of hundred simple black and white A4 leaflets which aren't as elegant but are a damn site easier to produce!

I'm hoping that various local bodies such as the Kennington Association, Vauxhall Society, Councillors, TRAs etc. will email their local list with details of the workshops. The list is taking shape and early next week I'll send out the details to them with a request that they forward them.

Video of the Week: Tr'espace Diabolo Duo

The spinning diabolo is a historic Chinese game than enjoyed great popularity in Britain in the early 20th Century. Over the past 20 years there's been a resurgence of interest and the boundaries of what can be achieved have been pushed ever further. Here's Tr'espace, one of the great acts of recent times, with Roman Muller and 'Nella Von Zerboni

Video of the Week: Spot the Drop

I love leapfrog steals and Malte and Niels, aka Spot the Drop, do a fine one in their show. Here's a photo I took while they were performing at the National Theatre last week:.

and here's a short trailer to show a flavour of their work.:

It was a pleasure to have them stay with us for some of their time in London, before they departed on the next stage of their frantic touring schedule.

Video of the Week: Club Swinging

One way or another I hope we'll be nurturing club swinging at Southbank Jugglers workshops from this September. Meanwhile here's some fine work to take inspiration from:

Workshop Review: Spinning@TheRagFactory

This Tuesday evening workshop, just off Brick Lane (details here), was busy last night with hula-hoop, poi and stick spinners, plus a couple of solo jugglers. The Rag Factory is nowadays a gallery space, with three long and fairly narrow spaces (shown below), all with quite a lot of lighting hanging from bars. 

The height is generally limited to begin with, and beams and the lighting bars encroach on the glazed higher roof sections, and I found it too cramped to comfortably run through the usual tricks I practice when juggling clubs.

Video of the Week: Flying Karamazov Brothers

In 1981 I saw juggling troupe 'The Flying Karamazov Brothers', from the west coast of America, at the Mayfair Theatre in London. I decided there and then to become a juggler, and spent the next three months trying to find someone who could teach me the basic three ball cascade. Then someone (who?) placed a small ad in Time Out offering lessons, and I learnt in their front room.

Today Tom Noddy, the bubble man, drew my attention to a video of past and present members of the FKBs performing at this year's Oregon Fair. I'd been looking for a suitable video to start a 'Video of the  Week', so what could be more suitable than eight minutes of iconic club passing and patter ("it's still more fun than a unicorn in a balloon factory"):

Gandini jugglers elsewhere in London next week

Not only do the Gandini's have a load of shows at the National Theatre, see my previous post, but next week they're also taking part in the Mayor of London's Showtime season of excellent outdoor entertainment that's visiting every London borough

You can see their show 'Smashed', amidst other top outdoor acts between noon and the late afternoon, as follows:

Mon 30 July: Kensington & Chelsea, Exhibition Road

Tue 31 July: Hammersmith & Fulham, Lyric Square

Thu 2 August:  Lambeth, Clapham Common

To see who else in on in the Showtime season, click on the borough of choice and a pop up appears on the map with the venue details, then click on the 'Line Up' tab next to that.

Gandini Jugglers at National Theatre this week

London based Gandini Juggling are, in the eyes of many, the greatest juggling company in the world at the moment. They're just back from a mega tour of France and Italy, and I urge you to see them from Tuesday to Sunday at the National Theatre in the free Watch This Space outdoor series.

They're doing an amazing range of shows in the week, including a new one Twenty/Twenty with no fewer than 20 professional jugglers. Something you may never get the chance to see again! I'd really recommend also seeing their 'The Sweet Life' and 'Smashed' shows.

Not only are Gandini Juggling performing, but members of the company are showing their own work, which again are totally worth seeing. I'll name check the German duo 'Spot the Drop' as another must-see.

Not only is there the chance to watch the maestros at work, there's the chance to learn from them as they're running a free juggling workshop each day too, with limited spaces so I suggest you book online 

Here's an easy to print list of what's on when (GJ = Gandini Juggling):

Tuesday 24th
13.00 GJ Smashed short version
13.30 GJ Workshop
15.30 GJ Sauce and Spit - The Gandini Sailors

Wed 25th
13.00 GJ The Sweet Life
13.30 GJ Workshop
15.00 Juggling Solos 1
14.00 Spot the Drop and Quartet
17.00 Juggling Solos 2
17.30 GJ Workshop
18.15 GJ Smashed full version

Thur 26th

13.00 GJ Smashed short version
13.30 GJ Workshop
15.00 GJ Sauce and Spit - The Gandini Sailors
16.00 Juggling Solos 1
17.00 Juggling Solos 2
17.30 GJ Workshop
18.30 GJ The Sweet Life

Fri 27th
13.00 GJ The Sweet Life
13.30 GJ Workshop
15.00 Juggling Solos 1
16.00 Spot the Drop and Quartet
17.00 Juggling Solos 2
17.30 GJ Workshop
18.15 GJ Smashed full version

Sat 28

13.00 GJ Twenty/Twenty
15.00 GJ Sauce and Spit, Juggling Solos 1
15.30 GJ Workshop
16.30 Spot the Drop, Juggling Solos 2
17.00 Juggling Workshop
17.30 GJ Smashed short version
18.45 The Sweet Life
22.00 Twenty/Twenty

Sun 29
13.00 GJ Twenty/Twenty
14.00 Juggling Solos 1
14.30 GJ Workshop
15.30 Spot the Drop and Quartet
16.00 GJ Workshop
17.00 Juggling Solos 2
17.30 GJ Workshop
18.15 Smashed full version
22.00 Twenty/Twenty

I'm exhausted just typing out the list. I shudder to think how shattered the company will be by the end of the week.

More useful than the Daily Telegraph

The Daily Telegraph has an 'In the Know - London Lifestyle' column and today's question was:

Are there any circus schools or juggling clubs in London for adults?

Their answer lists three places to go - Circus Space, Aircraft Circus and Gorilla Circus Flying Trapeze School - but not a single one of these has an adult juggling workshop.

As it happens I've just put up a list of London Juggling Workshops which will hopefully prove more useful to the Daily Telegraph's readers wanting to juggle than the paper they read.

Preparing for a new London juggling workshop

There are no juggling workshops immediately south of the Thames at the moment. But that changes this September when Southbank Jugglers new workshop opens up at the new Black Prince Community Hub between Kennington Road and the Albert Embankment.

Details of this workshop, which is free for the first two months thanks to funding from the Mayor of London's Freesport scheme, can be found on the Thursday Workshop page.

While waiting for September to arrive, make sure to check out the fantastic juggling shows, including several from the Gandini Juggling Company (one with no fewer than twenty professional jugglers!) outside the Royal National Theatre from Tuesday 24th to Sunday 28th July. Details are on the National Theatre website