Juggle Til You Drop

Brought to you by the Flying Karamazov Brothers, whom I saw in concert with the Bobs on Sunday night. (I may blog the Bobs' portion of the concert tomorrow. No promises.)

This is essentially a Valentine to some of the best jugglers around. Getting the complaints out of the way first:

1. No introductions. (Their stage names are Dmitri, Ivan, Alexei, and Pavel, in case you're wondering, and they're neither really Karamazovs nor brothers, though Dmitri and Ivan are brothers-in-law.) The programs were no help, either, containing only general information about the FKB and the Bobs, and zilch about why the two foursomes were collaborating.

Ivan touched briefly on the reason in what passed for an introduction to the show: Music is a series of events (notes) arranged over time. Juggling is also a series of events (throws and catches) arranged over time. Things that are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. Therefore, juggling = music. Therefore, jugglers + singers. I was all excited about this notion, but neither side referred to it again, so we ended up with a show without a through-line.

2. The FKBs' energy seemed to be flagging. Or maybe it was the half-full house or the lack of audience response. I tried to help with that. When you see four guys juggling a dozen clubs in perfect rhythm while dancing a complicated do-si-do pattern and cracking jokes that are actually funny, you applaud, dammit! Just because they make it look easy doesn't mean it is. I don't think most of the audience realized what they were seeing, which had to be frustrating for the performers.

3. There was one completely gratuitous song and dance number that involved Ivan, Pavel, and Amy Bob in drag, and some jokes about incestuous hillbillies, but no discernable juggling. Huh?

And now for the good stuff.

The FKB do, and always have done, fascinating things with rhythm. Rather than ignoring the soft thack thack thack of club handles hitting palms, they emphasize the sound. Then the rhythm is audible as well as visible, which makes it music on acid. Not that I'd know anything about that, of course.

So Ivan comes out and pulls on little white gloves with something solid sewn into the palms. Each catch, amplified by impact with the gloves and by his throat mike, is distinctly audible. He juggles three clubs in metronomic rhythm, one-two-three-one-two-three. Got it? OK. Then he starts varying the height of his throws, which means a longer time before the catch, which means a longer space between notes. Realize that in order to create a lag on beat 3, for instance, he has to remember to throw higher to create hang tiem on beat 2, so his mind has to be a least one step ahead of what his hands are doing. That's impressive right there. Applaud.

Then the other three guys come out one by one, gloved, and start juggling. They're not in unison with Ivan, though. Each has a separate part, deepening and complicating the percussion, and suddenly it's not just a juggling show, it's a drum line. Applaud!

Then they switch to 5/4 time. All you musicians know how challenging 5/4 time is, right? Think about four guys controlling three clubs each in 5/4 time. Applaud, but briefly, lest you throw them off, until they end the piece. Then applaud applaud.

[Interlude: a juggleless percussion piece featuring cardboard boxes in place of Taiko drums. To get the joke, you have to know what Taiko drumming is. Alas, most people don't, so it just looks like four guys beating the crap out of some boxes. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Applaud, bemusedly.]

Next they add hitting to the mix. Alexei and Pavel stand in front of wooden flats. Each flat has four targets on it, one above each shoulder and one beside each thigh of the guy standing before it. Each target is a drumhead. Maintaining standard three-club patterns, they bang out a percussion duet. Applaud!

The flats go away. Alexei keeps his clubs; Ivan and Pavel each hold a drumhead. They move these targets into the various four positions behind Alexei for him to strike while he juggles, and sometimes they toss the drums to one another as well. Then Ivan bails and Pavel works up a sweat handling both drumheads and all four target positions by himself. Applaud!

But that's not all! Now it's time to add melody to the percussion. Ivan and Dmitri wheel out a marimba. Instead of standard juggling clubs, each man has three mallets with which to strike the marimba bars on the downbeat. Juggling throws go upward, mallet strikes go downward, so they're thinking in two directions at once. Dmitri gets the traditional position with the low notes to his left, high notes to his right. Ivan, facing him from the other side of the instrument, has to play in reverse. They tap out a nice little Bach piece, working in a few two-handed trills while the third mallet spins overhead. If you don't applaud that, I'll rough you up in the parking lot after the show.

So far, no one has dropped either a club or a beat.

[Interlude: a number that involves each guy holding a musical instrument but strumming or fingering that of the guy to his right, with the two end guys juggling three balls between them. Hmm. Applaud? Sure.]

Finally (and I'm sure I'm leaving out a few things) it's time for the jazz concert. Juggling jazz is a lot like musical jazz: some of it is improvised and you can't always tell what's going on. Juggling jazz requires at least two players who start off by passing clubs (or whatever) back and forth in the usual manner but soon begin to embellish their throws — without, they hope, breaking the pattern.

All four Ks participate in the jazz number. Dmitri takes the feed position, standing alone facing the other three. He exchanges clubs with, or feeds, each of his comrades in turn. He's very busy, executing a pass and a catch on every beat. He has to be an exceptional catcher with a cool head, because the other guys are going to be screwing around. The feeder is like the drummer in a musical combo.

The other guys, being less busy, are free to improvise in any way that doesn't mess up the group pattern. They might throw under their legs or behind their backs, add spins and flashes and flourishes, throw extra high within their self-patterns, or throw extra high passes to Dmitri, which requires planning ahead so the pass arrives at the right time. In other words, they're going to show off as much as possible. They're the guitar and horn players.

Juggling jazz allows for mistakes, because with all those clubs in the air, a few drops are inevitable. The goal is to maintain the rhythm while the drops are recovered and the pattern's harmony is restored. Mistake recoveries, which are an art form in themselves, are an expected part of the piece; you just don't know when they're going to occur. (Most troupes, before attempting jazz, will explain this so the audience doesn't get snooty about the drops.) Applaud at will during jazz, any time you see something cool. This will be often.

There were plenty of ooh! moments during Sunday's jazz, including some ultra-high passes disappearing momentarily into the flies, and a few incidents of there being more clubs on the ground than in the air. But the rhythm stayed steady and they all ended together, which means it was great. Applaud whistle *make rock 'n roll devil horns with fingers* applaud.

I can't describe the final number without a PowerPoint presentation and an undergraduate degree in physics (Pavel has one), so I won't try. Let's just say it involves marching band precision footwork and probably looks even cooler from the top of the house than from row F. Applaud woo! applaud!

Then the Bobs join them onstage and there's singing (both groups) and juggling (FKB only, although I would pay extra to see the Bobs juggle) in 5/4 time. Applaud whistle stamp applaud applaud . . . applaud . . . clap . . .OK, I guess they're done.

No encore, only a curtain call. Bummer. But wow!

Overall grade: A-/B+. Needed a narrative. And sorry, but that hillbilly number? I repeat, huh?

Things I wish they'd done because they're my personal favorites but that simply weren't part of this show:

• throwing fire — because fire in a theater is always good, right?

  
  

• numbers tricks (juggling large numbers of things; these are guys who can handle 7, 8, maybe even 9 clubs apiece, but they stuck to 3 each)

  
  

• nonstandard props

  
  

• the restaurant finale, which involves both fire and nonstandard props

  
  

• the two-man roundabout that incorporates dialogue from Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

  
  

• the famous Challenge, wherein Ivan accepts ridiculous items from the audience to juggle for 10 rounds. If he succeeds, he gets a standing ovation; if he drops, he gets a pie in the face. I once saw him do a potted plant, a sticky glue ball, and a deceptively weighted Bart Simpson doll. It was fantastic. Ovation!

  
  

• bounce juggling. You know those giant keyboard pads you can lay on the floor and play by hopping from key to key? (Think Tom Hanks in Big.) I once saw one of the guys, I forget which, use five silicone balls to bounce-juggle a piece of classical music several minutes long on one of those things. Unbelievable. I've also seen video clips of them throwing silicone balls that bounce up under a table, then back out into their hands, in four-part rhythm — and, naturally, the tabletop has a tonal quality like a tympani drum. AND I've seen contact juggler Michael Moschen do a routine like this by himself with five balls. It's enough to make a girl wet herself. Juggling is too damn cool.

Don't ask for much, do I? I'll just have to see them again.

Today around the world: May 11 is National School Nurse Day.