163 - Redefining Progress with Jack Denger part 1 of 2

What if world-class technique isn’t the point, but the vehicle? We sit down with extraordinary juggler Jack Denger to unpack how a high-skill act can carry story, emotion, and authorship—without dumbing down the craft. Jack is in a season of change, and that openness sparks a different creative process: choosing constraints, curating context, and shaping movement to words and music so an audience feels guided instead of flooded.

We start with the spark that set him on the path—Cirque du Soleil’s layered worlds—then fast-forward through years of meticulous training to the moment virtuosity wasn’t enough. Together we map the differences between music, magic, and juggling: music hits emotion directly, magic often delivers tight narratives, and juggling presents visible difficulty that can overshadow meaning. So Jack picks a frame with built-in resonance: Steve Jobs’ Stanford speech, already intertwined with score. That single decision solves length, sets tone, and invites big themes—finding what you love, connecting dots, mortality—while freeing Jack to choreograph for punctuation, phrasing, and space.

The craft talk goes deep. Jack reveals how he assigns tricks for visual intent, times accents to musical peaks, and uses the entire stage as part of the composition. We examine cognitive load when layering speech over dense patterns, and share practical fixes: carve breathing room, let simple patterns carry crucial lines, and drop in clear visual metaphors to re-sync attention. Feedback becomes fuel—first drafts that feel “wrong” expose what to refine; theatrical framing (a lone microphone, approached then abandoned) signals authorship without breaking tone. It’s an honest look at creating an act that’s not just harder, but richer, where skill, story, and sound pull in the same direction.

If you’re a performer, director, or curious fan, you’ll come away with tools for building meaning into movement and making choices that help your audience follow along. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this with a friend who loves craft and process—what part of performance do you notice first: skill, story, or sound?

Transcript

Reviews, Follows, And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Greetings, fellow travelers, and welcome to the Way of the Showman, where we view the world through the lens of showmanship. I am Captain Frodo, and I will be your host and your guide along the way. And today we're talking to the extraordinary juggler Jack Denger. Now before we do that, I uh have told myself that I have to remind you to go somewhere, uh Spotify or uh um on uh iTunes and leave a review for the show. Uh in the beginning, when I first started this podcast um many years ago, I reminded people all the time, and I got a whole lot of reviews, and that is really good to help uh people find the podcast. It just puts me up in all the things. So if you can, go and click five stars. Don't even have to write a review, it's pretty easy. Um and while you're at it, open your Instagram account, go to the Way of the Showman, and uh follow us there. Maybe something good would come out of it. Uh and if uh you can, if you still got love for the podcast, then tell a friend that the podcast exists, tell them to check it out. And uh I would be very grateful, and maybe they will be too. So uh to today's guest, Jack Tenger, uh, is an extraordinary juggler. And as always, you know, I don't do the biggest introductions of uh people here. And I heard about this man uh as my friend Jay Gilligan contacted me and said he has a podcast episode called Redefining Progress, and it would be very worthwhile uh listening to. And I did, I went and listened to it, and I find it really interesting. The podcast is called Night Catch with Jack Denger. And uh, this episode is called uh Redefining Progress, Act Creation. I will post a link to it uh in the show notes, and if not, you can search for the just search for it in uh Spotify and you'll find it. And um the interesting thing there was that here was a person who could very well articulate themselves about their desire to go beyond the tricks, which as the faithful listener, maybe such as yourself, you will know that this is something that me and Jay have been pursuing and uh that I am really interested in. So um we started to go back and forth on WhatsApp. Jay made a little group on WhatsApp and we asked questions and did a lot of back and forth, and at the time I had just sort of discovered some sort of um um thing in a book that I was reading about music, and I did some ranting. Some of it I think I might have ranted for 40 minutes on that group and just left a big basically a podcast episode, which now that I think of it, I should probably find that and um and uh retell it, tell it to you guys as well. But um then on as I was finishing the gig that I was on when this happened, and as I was driving home, he Jack Jack sent me the music to his um act, and I also really liked that. It had spoken word on top of it, and I thought, ah, this is uh really great. And we have over the last year been back and forth, and he made a first draft of his act and performed it and all that. And uh yeah, I found him to be a really um uh well-reflected and interesting man. And when I then saw the video of him juggling, I was blown away because this man is an incredible juggler. So um anyway, um I think we've probably said enough. And uh I hope that you will like today's episode, which when I was listening to it now, it's um a little bit different. It's almost like we are actually jamming on uh this act that he did um and that he's been working on and how to take it further. And we're talking about how to um interact when you're doing juggling and you're doing lots of really incredible technical juggling. How do you go beyond the tricks? How do you make them um and and how how to interact with text and music? And so there's a lot of stuff here that is more closely related to the way that I um communicate when I'm you know, if I'm actually jamming with someone on on uh helping them with their act or coming up with ideas. So um yeah. I'm not sure uh if that was exactly where we sort of decided that we were going to be going before we started, but um these conversations do have a life of their own. So um I hope you like what I have to say, and uh because I do talk quite a bit in this episode, which I sometimes do, I am aware of that. But um, yeah, it's really interesting to meet Jack Denger, and I think you'll be interested to meet him too. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

What's going on in your life?

Jack’s Life Update And Transitions

SPEAKER_00 5:14

Um, you know, uh I uh well actually I I'm changing jobs here in about uh two weeks. I just got a new job here, still in Indianapolis and still um, you know, in finance, uh financial advising and and all of that. Uh but uh yeah, my last day at my old job was yesterday. So I've actually got two weeks here where I'm not working. So um, you know, I I don't know what exactly that's gonna be for me. I don't really have any plans other than one of my juggling buddies, he's performing at a uh show in Chicago. So I'm about two and a half or three hours from there. So I'm gonna go up to go up there and uh you know see the show and hang out with him and catch up with a couple people. So, you know, life's life's been good. Um just uh I've been looking for a new job for a while and got that kind of figured out. So it's kind of strange. Like, yeah, you probably go through these like periods of life where you just notice everything really starts to change, you know, and for example, just in little ways, like I'm getting this new job, and um, you know, maybe relationships change or I'm switching gyms. It's also for the middle of fall here, so everything's kind of changing in that way too. It's just a weird um, you know, mental state that that puts you in. It's like you leave your you leave this office that you spent, you know, hundreds or thousands of hours sitting in, and it's just like, well, all of a sudden that's just over and life is life is changing now. So but it's good, yeah. Less less than good. Still doing a little juggling too.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

So that's those those times are the most interesting times. When it uh whether it is a change between jobs or it's a move to another place, or when it's a little more involuntary, if you're being sacked or a contract is cancelled, or you have a breakup or whatever. When I look back at my life, it's some of the most pivotal moments of my of what led to who I am now comes in those moments when everything is kind of thrown up in the air, like all your props, all your gloves and balls and rings, and you don't know what you're gonna catch and get a stable pattern with afterwards. I don't know. It's uh it's it's not always a good uh feeling, but uh, I mean, you already have some feeler feelers out, and you got solid work, but you got these two weeks of an interim period. It's exciting.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, yeah. It's it's funny that you say that. You know, those periods of uncertainty are some of the most interesting. And you know, there was a a couple of months ago, there there was a chance that I my job was gonna be eliminated, that I was going to be let go. Um not because of anything that I did necessarily, but just um it ended up not happening. But I remember when that that conversation was brought to the table, I kind of looked at it and thought, like, well, this might be kind of interesting. Like this is gonna this could make for an interesting chapter of of life, like uh an interesting season. And you know, after after they said it wasn't happening, I was kind of I almost was like, shoot, that would have been kind of interesting. There's less room for possibility now. But yeah, when when life changes and when you have these gaps or things like that, that's when that's when new possibilities can can sneak in. And that's that's an exciting time.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

So yeah, I mean it is, and it's because most of the time in our lives, we are we are kind of caught up in our plans and uh day-to-day and putting one foot in front of the next, and you're going to work, and you're doing this next weekend, and you're meeting the in-laws, or you whatever it is, all like it's just set up, and in those moments in between, you open yourself up to a different conversation with the world. All of a sudden, somebody commenting, like, well, like like now, like your friend going, Oh, I'm doing some shows in Chicago. Uh, why don't you come up? Or you go and all of a sudden that like you're open for it for a different thing that normally would just be like, no, it's three hours away. I have to go to work the next day, or like, or it's just two days weekend, or whatever. So, will I be bothered doing it? So it's good. It's um I think that's kind of all kinds of conversations are or if you can call it that, are going on constantly around us. But being able to tune into them or not often has to do with your receptivity. It's like you have this tuner, and most of the time it's so specifically tuned that you most of the stuff is not um um picked up by you. And I'm thinking a little bit about sometimes when I'm learning a new word, I'm reading something, and then a word comes up in a text, and I'm going, oh, I don't know what that word means. And then you you you look it up, and all of a sudden you start to see it. And you go, surely it can't just be that that word just started being there because I've just learned it. It must have always been there, and now I'm noticing it or something. Right, right.

Creativity From Uncertainty

SPEAKER_00 10:16

Well, and yeah, the I guess the key then is like, how how can we um what are the things that uh open our receptivity, you know? What what what things trigger that? Um, what things sort of break you out of the routine of daily life, things that you notice or things that open up your perspective, you know, in some way. And uh, you know, if if only I could attune myself better to those. Um yeah. I I mean if we want to talk about being cre you know creative and things like that, it's like that's uh those moments where you you know open open up your mind to new possibilities, whatever it is, right? Whether it's a new word or new music or something, yeah. Um that's uh you know, there's gotta be some juice there. Yeah, and I think it's there's something in that.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

I'm just going like, what uh didn't uh Brian Eno he made a deck of cards or so, and I and he think he uses this kind of language of disruptive strategies where you're introducing stuff, um could you call it noise? Like you're introducing chaos or random stochasticity into your uh into your process and sort of disrupting because when when you go into creating something, if you have too uh close of an idea, too narrow uh too specific an idea when you go in, maybe you will make that, but again, if you're too focused on exactly what you want to do along the way, then it's almost like you are you're making the conversation too small or or like you're not as open as you are if you're going in. Uh yeah, I mean, I don't know if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah, well, there's there has to be um there has to be room for something organic to, you know, emerge too, because we all have our ideas about what we want to do, you know, in uh something we're creating or just in life. And um, you know, of course, if we're creating some performance, we have total control over what that's gonna be. In life, you don't have total control, but if you're making something new, you do. And um that's uh yeah, it's important to leave leave room for for that type of stuff. And this is you know, almost getting into well, the sort of the performance I created, you know, sort of this year. Um and you know what some of my intent was behind that, just uh on a personal level. Um we can sort of circle back to that, but um yeah, there's there's gotta be room for you know for things to for things to change and allowing just a little bit of breathing room is you know part of the process too.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

So yeah. And I I that was definitely like one of the impetuses for us to have this conversation is uh is that you have uh well I became aware of you got the heads up about your uh podcast, nice catch, uh, from the end of last year, and you made uh an episode, episode two, that was called Redefining Progress, where I I mean I loved I loved it from the title onwards, when it's like you're so I definitely that's definitely what I want uh want to dig into. But I thought maybe we'd talk a little bit about uh you. Uh because uh apart from having listened to that, and then as you describe in in another episode, like we had a back and forth where we talked a lot conceptually about what juggling is and and whatever. It's like I was thinking about it in hindsight where you were basically dropped into this conversation that me and Jay were already kind of having, and I was at that time really digging into some stuff about how we how we process music when you listen to it, because I was going through this book about about music. Uh I heard there was Secret Court or whatever, that their book was called. I can't remember what the name of the author is off the top of my head, but anyway. That um so uh so we we got heavily into the conceptual stuff uh and um yeah, I just recently listened to the episode where you talk about some of these reflections on the first act. So um if you want to deepen this conversation uh to uh to all the fellow travelers out there who are listening, then you can go and find your podcast. I'll make a link to it in the show notes so that you can find nice catch. And it's a real sort of fresh on the ground uh exploration of you being at a threshold, which is basically what we talked about now of wanting to make something. But anyway, before we dig into all of that, let's um so like what were the seminal kind of people or inspirations that that got you into juggling?

Disruptive Strategies And Openness

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah, that's a great question. So, you know, real really uh as far as how I started juggling, I I got a book for Christmas one year when I was I was seven. My mom got it for me, and uh the reason that she got that gift was because a few months before we had seen uh Cirque du Soleil uh called La Nuba, and that was the Disney deck Disney World, it's it's no longer running. Um but you know, really I think that um you know, sort of the early stages of my time juggling and learning to juggle were really caught up in Cirque du Soleil. Um from a from the plainly from the perspective of uh performance, uh you know, uh it's kind of interesting to say that now because a lot of jugglers probably wouldn't see me necessarily as uh mainly a performing juggler. Um, you know, my skills are maybe more on the technical side, right? But yeah, that it was that first Circuit Soleil show that we saw as a family. And you know, there were no jugglers in the show, but of course there was you know flying treppies and hand balancing or whatever, you know. But I was just so, as a seven-year-old, just so caught up in the awe of of course what the performers were doing, the the music, the theatrics, you know, and that I was just hyped on that for for months afterwards. And so that's what that's what drew my mom to you know, see that juggling kit at the toy store or whatever, and and and buy that for me. So that was where it all started. And I I saved the kit for kind of a rainy day. And my you know, one day it was I was bored, and my mom said, Well, why don't you go look at some of the Christmas presents I got you? And pulled out that juggling kit, and uh I was you know pretty hooked at that point, and it was uh yeah, it was off to the races from there.

SPEAKER_01 17:02

That's that's great. I mean often when uh you talk about uh magic or or or what we do, it's it's it's seeing other people perform or whatever. That uh but it's interesting here that you're you're you got s sucked into I mean sucked to Soleil is uh and an undeniable influence on on the world. It's such a giant uh company. And uh back I saw in uh 1996 uh we were doing street shows or whatever in uh was uh was where we're in Copenhagen, I can't remember. I think we were in Copenhagen, and then Circle Soleil's show Saltenbanco played in Belgium. So we piled into the car, bought tickets, and drove drove to to Belgium and went and saw the show, and it was it was incredible. Of course, I was aware of them, I'd seen some of the stuff on video and and that on VHS tapes and whatnot. But uh it's uh and and me too, like just loving what they did, and I couldn't quite sort of picture myself in that show. I have a very different style from Sultan Banco and Lanuba and whatever, where they have like their classic golden age circus uh circus lay style. But um, I was also just fascinated by the complexity of their expression and whatever. So that that's yeah, I'm I'm interested to hear that.

Cirque du Soleil As Early Inspiration

SPEAKER_00 18:33

That's right. Well, and you know, there's sort of things uh that stick out about the experience of seeing the show that are sort of detached from the skills of the performers, for example. It just you mentioned the complexity, but really the the live music was fantastic. And of course, I didn't have a great gauge of these things as a as a seven-year-old, right? But you know, the live music was was fantastic, the the costuming was of course very unique, you know, to each show, uh colorful. Um and then as far as a narrative or a or a concept for the show, you know, to most of the naked eye, there's uh not quite clear what the narrative of each one of these shows is. And um I think there's something to that, you know, as far as how we enjoy or how we how we perceive, you know, these types of these types of performances where it's it's it's not totally clear, but there's there's it creates sort of an element of mystery around around what you're seeing. They're speaking a language that is not even a language, right? That's another part of it. So there's there's something going on, right? But that in terms of a story or a narrative, and there are characters, but it's it's there's some mystery there. And so I think that that was a big a big part of what what drew me to it as well.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

Did you have an ongoing relationship with Certa Soleil? Like, did you continue on liking their show? Or seek their shows out.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

Oh yeah. And my whole family did too. Because they saw that I was super into it. So I think a couple years later, my grandma got me a box DVD set of every Circuit Soleil show from you know it might have been 1984 to 2004 or something like that, right? And um, you know, I think since then we've probably I or I have seen, you know, probably a dozen more shows, uh, some multiple times, you know. So that was that was something that I enjoyed. I continue to enjoy, you know, but um it was really deep into that. And then, you know, at a certain point, maybe two or three years into me learning how to juggle and sort of being a juggler, um, you know, juggling sort of took over as the main interest, and it was really about juggling itself and less about the performance or the context. And I I became more fixated on becoming a becoming a better juggler. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I mean, it's it's uh I think that is a is a sort of a necessary part of the development of an artist, too. It's like in the beginning, you need something to an inciting incident uh and or something that you gets you into it, and but then there is a time when you put your blinkers on and develop your skills or the or whatever that that is, where you are developing what later on will be the reservoir that you will draw on when you're doing shows and whatever. I mean, I guess that well, I was gonna say that the main difference with with me is that my focus was on doing shows. So it was on the performative element, but that's also not true. Like at this time when and when I saw Salton Banco, I was 100% identifying as a juggler. I spent my time juggling, and when I'm listening to your episode talking about uh, oh, and then I did was gonna learn seven clubs, and I had this many throws and all that, so I also have logs of uh of how many throws I did that day, and I didn't stop my uh five ball, but I was on five-ball cascades. So, uh but I was logging the numbers, and my idea was well, if I can if I can do two minutes or or above on a regular basis, then it means that when I'm doing my five balls in the show, and of course you aren't gonna stand there and juggle for two minutes because it's totally boring or whatever, but it means that the level of skill that I will present in the show will be so easy that I will have a very low failure rate or whatever. So I was definitely into into that then. And I think I've had that in several different directions with magic and the different things that I've along the way kind of identified and and gotten passionate or obsessed about.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

That's great. Well, yeah, and from the perspective of a performer is you know, whatever you're presenting, you have to be obsessed with it just fundamentally, I think, right? So having the the time and the drive to develop that. And then also, like you alluded to, sort of develop your, you know, vocabulary or whatever that you would use to present or to share down the road, I I think is I think is important. But you know, in your case, it's it's pretty remarkable that um the performance side of things was hand in hand, it sounds like, you know, even early on as right as maybe you were learning the five-ball cascade, is like getting the reps in with how to be in front of an audience, how to communicate with an audience, how to have a conversation with an audience, or sort of share the same space with them and and create a moment with with all of you together. You know, that's that's a different skill set right there. And so I think it's you know pretty great that you had both of those things kind of kind of going at once. And for me, it was it was always really one-dimensional in the in the performance sense. It was more every year I'd do a couple of shows, you know, for whatever, and my juggling had gotten a little better. So I had some new tricks that I could do in front of people. And as far as, you know, for me, a 10-year-old boy, sort of trying to modify or sculpt the context for sharing the juggling, it was always up until very recently, it was always well, I've got more tricks, different tricks to show you this time, and I've got a new song that I like too. So I've got to include that, right? But uh that's a different skill set, right? It's is uh how how do we present these things in context? So yeah.

From Tricks To Performance Vocabulary

SPEAKER_01 24:37

I mean, that that's it's interesting. I uh just recently uh actually shared that that I was doing uh back in the day, that was a magic thing, and I was doing a you know, they do the linking rings as a magician. You and I I was doing a linking safety pin thing, and uh halfway through doing a demonstration at the this magic uh circle gathering that I was with with my dad, and uh halfway through doing the all the tricks, one of the men who were there was like, Oh yeah, so what are you thinking about for your presentation of this? What are you gonna say? And I'm like just having this mini awakening gone, like, oh man, I'm just like just showing you I can do this, I can do that. But that's also from this thing that to me, in my mind, mastering these slides and the moves involved in making it appear like magic when something else is going on. That was that was the extent of how I thought about it. And also when I was doing my juggling acts around that time as well, it was like my goal when I went to this circus course in Bristol in in 1996 was to come out of there and I wanted to have a club juggling act to music. And that was that was the end of the goal, and I wanted to have a ball juggling act to music, it's like too one piece of music or whatever. So it's it it's kind of interesting how I start you start with these smaller kind of things, and where in my mind, because I was obsessed with the tricks, it was like, well, I'm gonna do the open with these tricks here, and then I'm gonna have the fireball cascade, and then I do the catch on the neck, and then that's like that, that's that's how far I thought, and that was what I delivered, but also that was what the audience then liked. I managed to sell those things because I was passionate about them or whatever. But um, it's interesting, you have that same kind of feeling, and that I feel like that was when you were releasing your redefining progress, is to change the conversation that you're having with the audience.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

That's right. Well, and just from my perspective, what a gift that somebody asked you, well, how are you going to present the the linking rings trip, right? Because you know, we're we're getting really close to uh why you know why I sort of reached back out and sent you a message on Instagram recently, right? Because you're having a conversation with Nick DeFat, right? And um well, you you were discussing just generally speaking, uh, the presentation of magic, and it sort of led me down this rabbit hole mentally of you know just thinking about magic, and I know very little about magic, right? It's like magic is something that it can be presented completely on its own. Like you said, you can just do the trick for somebody and you can show you can showcase the skill that's required to you know conceal whatever the real skill is, right? That's a skill on its own. You can just simply present this, but then you know, uh there are parts to that conversation that include um yeah, I'm trying to phrase this better. Um you know, presentation of magic can certainly be enhanced through spoken word, through storytelling, or through comedy. It can be enhanced, its presentation can be enhanced or you know, sort of curated through music, um or through through comedy. You know, there are so many different platforms that I think really lend themselves to presenting magic specifically. And it led me down this path of sort of comparing and contrasting magic with juggling, right? Um, because I've always been sort of puzzled by the presentation of juggling. And um well, yeah, yeah, I guess sort of circling back, you mentioned I, you know, recently wanted to change my own conversation about how to present juggling or what juggling can be to an audience. And um, you know, but part a part of the starting point for that is what's inherently what is at the essence of juggling. You know, how can we zoom in on what juggling really is, and then we can expand to everything from from there. Because I I, you know, I went 20 years of building up my skills and sharing my skills, and you know, recently found that that wasn't enough for me to stay engaged anymore, it was just getting better at the juggling. There's value in doing that, but this is what sort of led me down the path. It's like, well, I want I want to present the vocabulary that I do have in in a new way that is impactful, you know, and that has depth to it beyond um beyond just the tricks. So I I'm jumping around here, but I guess only because sort of opening up the floor for the conversation that we started having by Instagram and that led us to sort of um share the conversation.

Magic vs Juggling vs Music

SPEAKER_01 29:43

That's not also the the this is also at that at the core of my interest. And I'm like, I have this interdisciplinary approach where I'm I have been talking to many people in many different subgenres of performing, which is how I came up with this this these the ideas that I have of when I need to say something that is of value to somebody who where I'm working in a show where someone is a singer and somebody is doing uh a funny juggling act, and somebody is and then to have the vocabulary to be able to say something to all of them, like how do you actually connect? Because you mentioned it already. There's like the two different one is the technical skill that you have of developing a certain virtuosity, of which you are very far along. Because it was also interesting, we had this conversation the first time we got connected, and I'm talking to you like any performer, and that, and you have uh have a musical background, so you have knowledge of music, and that was kind of how we spoke. But also, then when I first time then saw you juggle, I was also going, Holy shit, you are you are very, very good. Uh it's uh at a skill level that that I don't know, not that I just I was just uh amazed, like a like a lay person or whatever, because we had had so much conversation, and then when I saw you, then we'd never spoken about what level you were on. So uh it also feels to me like people like you and Jay, when you have such a high skill level, you can be able to actually relate to your juggling like music. Because I think when I was doing juggling, I needed to have other modes of presentation because to just do a flawless high skill act was not within the scope of what I could do or whatever. So I had other other ways of relating to it. Or so, but yeah. We're talking about magic and we're talking about juggling, and then we we've been talking about music, and some of the key things with those three is that I think they are at different levels of abstraction, like music is in some sense mentioned by many people who think about it as like the most kind of uh directly emotional mode of expression. Uh it's just there as and if you're then thinking classical music first or music with no words, it's just uh emotional resonance between you and sound. I listen to a lot of classical music, and I am so moved. I particularly like Baroque music, and I'm so moved by some of these pieces that are like they're they're religious or so. So they're speaking to a higher a higher dimension of it, but they aren't speaking of anything, like maybe the title has has that in it, that it but you listen to it and it feels sacred or whatever. So that's like the most kind of abstract. And then if we're looking at magic, since that was me and Nick uh talking, that was a pivot point as well. I think magic has more story in it than juggling. When you're doing one trick and you're doing another trick with juggling, then that is relatively abstract, not quite maybe as abstract as music, because there's something else going on with the skills of it. Whilst when we're listening or watching a magic trick, the story might be here is a ball, now the ball is is gone, and it turned out it was now behind behind your ear or whatever. And there is a certain kind of beginning, middle, and end to uh uh to uh magic that makes it more concrete, uh, which I think is why within juggling there is there is uh like well with you and Jay, let's not say I don't know enough about uh juggling to make those statements, but this these explorations of how to uh communicate your intent and how to use the juggling to communicate something else. I mean, that's a that's as I see it. So so to me, what what we can talk about are these kind of levels of abstraction within the art, and then how what can be communicated and how then to communicate that intent. Because maybe we should talk a little sort of you talk a little bit about um what you share in episode three on your podcast, but that's kind of what happened after we'd had a conversation, and then you're in that weird situation that me and Jay kind of has as a shorthand of that. It's like, okay, now we've done all the talking, all right. So curtain goes up, light comes on. What are you gonna do? We've now had highfalutin ideas of how things are and they're going and and you because that because your express goal is to go beyond the tricks and to make a deeper connection with the audience. So, what was one once we had all of this in mind, uh what was your approach? Like uh how did you choose the music and describe the music that you chose a little bit or the the yeah, sure.

Choosing Context: The Steve Jobs Speech

SPEAKER_00 35:14

So uh where where where should I start with all this? So, you know, I guess the the sort of my main goals of creating a new performance were what we touched on the first one. I wanted to find uh a new way to present juggling uh and challenge my own perspective on how I how I could present it and uh use some creativity to do so. I also wanted to start building some type of process to do that, or a prototype of a process to do that. And then, you know, finally, just and I'm not saying that this is um, you know, necessarily the best goal, but for me, being creative is I wanted my intent to be clear through my final product. You know, what whatever I was going to ultimately present, I wanted it to be clear to the audience what I was trying to do. And I think there's something to be said, by the way, for it not being totally clear sometimes, too. So I don't want to say that clarity of intent is higher or lower than any other value necessarily, but this is just sort of what I what I settled on it. I wanted it to be clear. So um, you know, where I went from there was really looking for well, music, frankly, or a soundtrack that I thought would lend some additional value to the juggling and an additional context to the juggling that could add depth to it in some way from the audience's perspective. And um sort of circling back to the levels of uh levels of abstraction behind juggling, you know, juggling is primarily visual, and um the the skill required to do it, the technique is very transparent to the audience that it involves throwing and catching in patterns behind your back, whatever, right? So since the visual aspect is really table stakes, that's always going to be there, that's I chose not to look there for something that would maybe add some additional depth to to the piece, so to speak. Typically in the past, I would have gone for some music that I just really liked. And in a sense, that's what I did in this case. I you know, I think for me, one of the one of the other criteria that I used to go about the process was I have limitations and constraints just as a person. So, you know, juggling for uh performing juggling is not my career. I don't have a ton of time to simply be creative and explore and also maintain my skill. Now, I mean uh performers don't have a lot of time to do that too, because they've got to perform, you know, it's this is life. But um the other limitation was, you know, I yeah, is my sort of a lack of experience on this side of things. And um so, you know, given given the time constraints that I had, I wanted to find some material that was would sort of pre-curate a context for me. And what I eventually settled on was a soundtrack that uh I had from high school, and it was really of a of a graduation speech that Steve Jobs gave um at at Stanford in the mid-2000s, and it was already set and very well edited to music, where it the music and the speech sort of weaved or wove in and out of each other, right? And um I just really liked the the piece. It was sort of something pre-packaged and ready to go. And for me, again, in my position, just wanting to expedite things in certain ways, I thought, okay, well, this is this is at least going to be a starting point here. And for example, the audio track was four minutes and 45 seconds long. Well, we don't have any questions about how long the act is going to be now. It's going to be that long. And, you know, in I think in a lot of ways, you know, it's it's nice to, like we were talking about earlier, leave some breathing room in the piece for things to emerge organically. And I think that was something I failed to do in some ways in this case, but having that structure already for me uh was it was kind of like some training wheels for my first go at creating something new. So that was that was ultimately what I settled on for the context. And you know, the reason I liked the speech, by the way, was it was broadly palatable. The messages that he was giving to the audience, which was, you know, essentially, you know, do something that you love doing. And of course, this was very relatable for me doing doing juggling, right? And um though the act is on YouTube, and you know, you can sort of Listen to the speech there too. But I thought the the the speech would be relatable to the audience. Um I thought that it added some narrative to the juggling that the audience could contemplate along with what they were seeing potentially. And though those were the things that sort of that sort of drew me to it. And you know, finally, just it it was it sort of checked that box of like, well, I haven't presented juggling with monologue before. And this is going to be something new, and let's go this way. At a certain point, you just have to make that decision.

Mapping Choreography To Text And Music

SPEAKER_01 40:35

Yeah. I mean, when you sent me, you sent that track. I was uh doing some shows in uh in Norway, so there was leading up to Christmas, and I listened to your track on the drive home as a five-hour drive from there. And uh you'd sent it, and it'd been in the in the my in the conversation for a bit, and I hadn't taken the time to listen to it. So then when I got in the car and I listened to it, and I remember being so like so excited that of the of that you had in the way that uh spoken word was introduced into it. Uh Steve Jobs' speeches, you know, to uh is spoken to people who are about to go out into the world. So it has this kind of feeling of uh it's like a motivational speech, and it's put putting things into context after we've all gathered in a lot of skills. So it also feels uh and now we're going into the world, and we're gonna actually use this skill that we've had, they've had at Stanford, and but it also mirrored what was going on with you. You got these exceptional skills, and now you want to put them out there. So I thought it was a great uh choice. And when I am approaching any kind of performance, uh I always kind of ask, how relatable is it? What are the modes of interaction or communication that you use? Because ultimately, in a sense, a performance is a form of communication. So you gotta have something to say, and you're saying it in a particular way, and uh you you as a character, as a performer, as a speaker, are presenting those ideas, and ultimately the skills is kind of the actions that are happening in it, and that's it's a will-based physical thing, and then you have the structure of it, which is often more intellectual, or you gotta think about it, and then you have the character, which is the at the heart of the emotion. How does the character come out and connect to the to the people? And I thought when you're using one of the one of the ways that you can can express all structure and all those things is through language. And it was one of the things that uh one of the ways uh the reasons that uh Jay had kind of wanted to talk to me about making reflex and everything is that I always use uh pretty much always use text as part of my what I do or I have stuff to say. Uh uh which is which comes in part because I that's been how my stuff has been delivered since I did shows with my dad when I was 10. But um it's also because I I think a lot about these things. So I so so I do and I think in words, and I have um as much as I practice skills and stuff, I'm thinking in now. So words is arguably, I mean, there's levels to to using uh text or words in your performance where like uh one if if one way is to have words that are just uh completely unrelated to what you do, like you're tuning the radio uh before you start the your juggling act and it comes on to the news, and then you're just juggling to it. So that it's it's it's a maybe it's a slightly reciprocal process, but it's but that's the first kind of level of relating to it. I think of it as sort of level one or whatever. And then level two is kind of is when you're using the text to describe what's going on in the act. I got uh uh two balls here and when one apple, and I'm gonna juggle the thing, and then and then after I've juggled 10 throws, I'm gonna eat the apple, take a bite, and we will if I manage to do 10 bites, then we good, then that's the end. Well, here I am, and I'm gonna look how high it goes, or which is in a sense you're doubling up on the speech, and in magic it's kind of here. I have a deck of cards, now I shuffle them, now you can pick a card, now put it back in the deck, and so you are you're sort of doubling up. And then the last level is when the text becomes kind of uh metaphorical or or poetic, so that the text is going on and there is relation to it, but the relation is not one-to-one. So that's like kind of how I broadly think of the text. So and that has also then to like, yeah, so so in that level, when you made your sort of first um draft of your act, because yeah, because you because the text talks about finding what you love, and it's got all this kind of great great practical advice also to do you feel like it's good advice for a life. How how did you what was your interaction and how did you yes, how how how did you interact with the text and how much of it you tried to visualize through action and all through um th through the actual tricks?

SPEAKER_03 45:39

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 45:42

Yeah, that's a great question. So you know, I think I think I tried to also the the the audio, you know, it sort of cycles through sections of speech and then music, and then speech and then music, and then it weaves them together at certain times. And so I think for for every section of speech, I just took it upon myself to find find the best way to relate to it. If that was on a very in a very direct way, um you know, for example, this the speech starts and it says, today I want to share three stories from my life. Right. And so at that point, you know, uh the way that it sort of uh the sort of the final draft, or there were three balls in a row. And I, as he introduced each one of these stories that he was going to tell, I, you know, picked up each one off of the ground. And, you know, then the speech or the the audio sort of edited all three stories together where he was talking over himself. And that was when I really started to juggle. And then that whole moment sort of culminated in the speech ending or the introduction ending and the rest, the body of the speech starting, right? And so I just tried to shape the juggling and the the movement this way, right? So that the uh uh punctuation was clear and so that um you know the well the juggling clearly related, or maybe not clearly related, but it related in some way to to what was going on in the in the speech. Um, you know, and so it but that looked like different things at different points throughout the throughout the act. I mean, there was one one thing that he says is you know, it was easier to connect the dots um looking backward than looking forward. And so, you know, there was a sort of a juggling trick that I like that I thought, well, that would be perfect because I I turn this way and that way at the exact same time, you know, uh at the same time that he says that. And a little later on, um, you know, the the speech takes on a different tone. He starts to talk about you know why it's important to remember death, you know, and the the music becomes frantic. And so I thought, well, the this is where the tempo of the juggling and the rhythm of the juggling needs to pick up to match. So then it was more of a musical play, right? And it had although the the speech was related to the music, then I was relating to the music. And so I, you know, tried to just find opportunities that made sense for everything together. And you know, sort of going back to my one of my original goals, you know, wanting my intent to be clear, I thought it was um appropriate to look for opportunities that made sense. Uh it's just um, you know, for example, yeah, the the music fades and then it just picks up and it becomes triumphant again, and that's you know, the moment for a big trick, right? Just where it can fit together clearly was was kind of um that was my whole goal.

First Drafts, Feedback, And Refinement

SPEAKER_01 48:49

Um yeah. It's and uh and how um from the first uh presentation of of the act, uh like when you were just you doing your initial work or whatever on it, uh how how did uh how how what was your first reactions from when when you showed it uh to people in because that's at such a huge for me it is, it's like you do your first presentation of something and performance is something which only actually fully actually exists when there's an audience watching it until the until you actually do it, any links between what's going on in the music and text and what you are doing can be super clear in your mind. And then when someone else watches it, it's not clear. I'm I'm doing a lot of writing at the moment, and uh Jay is helping me edit my book. And sometimes I have written something and I've gone over it many times, and I'm gone, all right, this is great. And then I send it to him, and in when he sends it back to me or whatever and does corrections and stuff, yeah. I'm so surprised at how clear I have tried to be. Because you were talking earlier about kind of that um that when you're developing something, or you know, you want to leave some room for it to be uh for audience to relate to it or whatever. But then I'm thinking, oh, we're juggling. If you try to be as direct and concrete as you absolutely possibly can, it's still going to be abstract. It's like so that it has that element kind of um built into it. But yeah, what was your what was your kind of uh journey from from your first attempt at doing it and then onwards?

Clarity, Overload, And Theatrical Framing

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Sure. So, you know, the the first sort of uh draft that I did of it was well, actually I sent it to you and you and Jay in that group chat. And uh, you know, at that point I had very little planned out as far as choreography and timing and stage movement and uh applause points, audience interaction. It was very skeletal, very bare bones. Um, and it was terrible, frankly. Like it was I looked like I didn't know what I was doing in that, you know. And um, you know, but that first draft was probably one of the most important things that I did because it was the starting point, you know, whether it was good or whatever values you can put on it, it was just incredibly important to establish that. And then we had something that you and I together could both look at and point to and say, this is this is what needs the work. Um yeah. And one of the one of your sort of observations, Proto, that you made and was incredibly helpful was we have these moments of speech, spoken word, we have these moments of speech, and then we have these musical moments, these, these interludes. And we want to find ways to make the speech more alive because that's the that's the thing here. That's what makes your performance distinct, aside from the juggling, of course, like the skills, whatever, but uh conceptually, the speech is what we want to bring to life. And Jack, I want you to focus in on what you're doing when he's talking and how you're relating to it. So there was that conceptual advice that was that was very helpful. And then for me, you know, from there it was a matter of filling in detail and curating the juggling in the way that I wanted it to be. Um, you know, and uh I guess to quickly address the juggling front, just from the standpoint of a so-called technical juggler, is I wanted to bring a lot of intent to the aesthetics of every trick that I was going to perform. I wanted to have a reason visually that I was including it in the performance, whether it was visually stunning on its own for some reason, or whether it uh synchronized very well with the moment musically or um verbally. I wanted all of that to be very clear. So having that first draft allowed me to go back and start filling in the gaps there. And then the second piece was how I was to move about the stage as well and to sort of populate the venue I was performing in. You know, I I think for me, just one of my values is that if you're given a stage that is, you know, 50 feet wide by 24 feet deep, you know, one of my goals just implicitly is to use up as much of that space as possible because the audience is taking up quite a bit of space too. So I wanted to fill in all of the details with the with the choreography, um, what I was doing with my body and how I was moving around the stage and you know, ultimately find um, frankly, convenient ways to link all of those things together. So um having a second set of eyes, like you said about Jay, was was very, very, very helpful. Um you know, the first performance I did was at a at a juggling festival. Um and it was very interesting to go and perform something like this for for the first time. Um and I I specifically asked people in advance to pay attention and let me know what they thought, you know, of of what I was doing. And the the feedback was a very wide range of feedback, you know. So uh honestly, I got most of the feedback that I got was like, that was awesome, man. Like, don't change a thing. And that that was, you know, helpful in some way. People I basically asked, did you did you understand what I was go what I was going for here? Or like was this impactful? And you know, there were a handful of people that are like, Yes, I I totally understood it. It was perfectly clear what you were trying to do. I'm like, okay, well, this is great then. Not to say that I'm not gonna make some changes here, but I'm on the right track, right? And then, you know, I had some folks that had different ideas, and uh, I think one of the best sort of critiques that I got was that um between the speech and the music and the juggling, there was too much going on to take in uh every detail, right? And um, you know, I I had already started going down this path and sort of understood that this is this is going to be a risk. At that point, you know, if one audience member is saying that, I knew that this would be a part of the conversation moving forward and um you know, ways to mitigate that, uh well, we could we could talk about that. But that was one of the bigger, bigger things that I took away. Um the other, you know, another piece of uh feedback that I got in a couple a couple of different forms was people thought that I could theatrically provide some additional context to the speech. Um, and it could be done comedically or it could be done seriously, right? So, for example, somebody suggested that I dress up as a corporate speaker, you know, and that I'm actually coming to give this sort of motivational speech to some you know random company or whatever, and I could, you know, have a costume that's maybe a little bit hokey and uh really um exaggerates that character, right? Uh so I thought that that was a funny idea, um, but it wasn't it wasn't close enough to the core of what I wanted to express as a person. It just wasn't a goal of mine to be funny with this. It wasn't a goal to be so, you know, you don't have to be so serious, but that wasn't what I was going for. And, you know, then another another piece that I added on as a result of that feedback was um I um in my final version, I put a microphone on the stage. Um and at the beginning of the act, I sort of go up to the microphone as if I'm about to share all of this. And as soon as the guy starts, as soon as Steve Jobs starts to talk, I pull away from the microphone and I go do my thing. And it kind of at least tees up that like, look, what what the speaker here is sharing with you, this is coming from me as well. Like, I I want to share these thoughts with you. And that was a more or less abstract way visually to to establish the premise. Um those those were some of the big things, right? It was the choreography, it was linking it all together, and then filling in every single detail. You know, I think one of the things for me as a performer that I had always failed to do was to orchestrate every detail of how I was about to move everywhere on the stage, when every trick was going to start and end. And those were those were the tweaks that I made uh in the months following that first performance.

Linking Words, Action, And Audience Focus

SPEAKER_01 57:56

Yeah, that's that's great. And it's it feels when you're describing it, it's the fact that the majority of this is whenever I do a show as well, uh, when doing working with Sertasole here or with Matt Apple in in Las Vegas, and it's part of the people who do the comedy comedy and whatever, we go out and do meet and greet. That's part of the job. So straight after the show, we go out and take pictures. And of course, it's like the majority of people just go, oh, that was awesome, that was great. And then they're sharing their overall experience that they just had a great time. And you want the the belt curve of of comments to kind of be those people who just didn't think about it any deeper or whatever, who just goes, oh, that's awesome. And they were getting stuff out of the in your case, they're getting stuff out of the words, they get, but they're getting the vibe, and they're getting a vibe out of the juggling, and they see a few little connections or whatever, which to me is just the exact thing you want. It means you're on the right track. There is uh there is value to be found here, and because what people seek from a performance, and of course, when we're working within uh the arts that we are, like the circus arts or whatever you want to call those, we're juggling kind of magic and all those sort of people are in most shows, people are primarily there to be have fun. They they're going out to have have a good time, and we're when we're working doing an event or whatever, you are there to add something to it. So so that they that that's a general response. I think that's uh really great. But also, it is also great that some people say there's so much going on. So those people who are sitting there, maybe they've been forewarned, and that's that's like part of it. Like, do you like in terms of how how do you prepare people? Because you said you'd asked people before beforehand to pay attention. But uh, having seen the videos and stuff, I am assuming that you did that in person before the show started, because you don't come onto the stage. make any kind of uh uh uh uh uh like because that's that's that would be once the microphone is there and and you could potentially go out and and say something about this because to me like the context of the performing is a little bit like um like when uh abstract art certain people who paint abstract paintings don't even uh give them names they go like work 25 or whatever untitled 32 and then you're left completely where the artist just goes I made this you deal with it in a sense and more you can frame those things and and it can come through the name of the thing and yours is concrete once it starts or whatever but um every time you watch a show you have to kind of uh or watch an act you have to work out how to relate to it and most of the time we just relate to juggling by looking at it and most of the time skill is an important part of it and we talked a bit with Jay about this of how how if if you want to go beyond the tricks or beyond the skill to convey something else it's in in juggling it's the skill is so prominent and it's such a important part of or like a natural part of what audience relates to is the skills. They go oh my gosh that is so looks so difficult I can't believe you could do this which is which is something that we don't immediately have with music where we don't immediately go oh it's amazing what you that you could play so fast between the seventh and the ninth or the whatever like we don't think of it you just express the music. So with all of this going on I think it's interesting like one way to approach the fact that there's words happening and then there's all the juggling happening is to find ways to make to what I think of as concretize some of the things that that um Steve Jobs says where we are going where we're doing less juggling. Because I remember now that when you were talking about some of the comments that I was giving it was also you were talking about oh I I as a response to the video of your first uh run through which is terrible setting where you're like in a juggling gym and people are working on different things and it's so it's difficult for you as some people are working on their own stuff. It's not like a show setting where everybody sits down and pays attention or so. But uh that you were saying oh I didn't it's like there's these bits in between where I'm not doing anything. It's just dead space and I was like ah this is actually that space that's there in between is kind of like that's the living space where there's the most the biggest potential for you to reach out and connect uh to the audience or so where if you were to tone down the feeling that many things are happening at the same time it's to could focus on acting out if that is makes any sense like the words where you're literally kind of reflecting the words sort of specifically because in that moment we will have the feeling like less is going on slash the words music and action starts to sync up so you remove one level of abstraction or so on. I can't remember the exact uh things I said or what we talked about but because he talks kind of about failure and stuff and uh and not giving up and stuff like that. So I was like I don't know if I even said that but that kind of concretization where you have a drop or you have have a stop where you're picking up your things again which might be one of those moments where you where where the audience might feel like everything sinks up. Because in pieces that I do where I'm doing a speech about the real about reality and magic and I'm doing magic tricks at the same time doing rope tricks it's parts of it is just visual illusions impossibilities are happening whilst I'm talking about the reality of magic. But that means that the audience is a bit bowled over because it's too much eyes are saying one thing and your brain is trying to take in another thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:35

But then when there are sections when I'm I'm I'm doing a kind of explanation of something and like like right here now I'm doing this and I'm tying these ropes together and that section where I'm all of a sudden using then level two word interaction where that what I'm doing that all of a sudden brings it in and it makes them also listen to the text differently because they now go oh there is all of a sudden there's a hundred percent relation between words and text and those things can mediate the feeling of them being unable to take in the the the two different uh levels all right folks that's all we had time for today and uh we have a whole nother episode exploring the ins and outs of creation of act of trying to find ways to get more content more um material more ideas more emotion into our act we'll pick that up again um in the next exciting episode of the way of the show now that's all I have to stay for today and until next time take care of you know should love to see