Blog
Daily differences of living in France
It is incredibly lucky to be living in France, the country of love, of beauty and a rich cultural history. But the learning curve during any kind of immigration is high, and some of my ideological values oppose the values this culture espouses. More than that, some of...
Balance: Practicing Grounding Out
There is a lot to be said about grounding out. Contact Juggling is an exercise in balance, and it's a wonder how I got this far without understanding balance of myself. Over this past year, I have been taking workshops, and working with directors who are guiding me to...
What do you include in your Fitness Praxis?
There is a lot of talk about practice time, discipline, focus and attention to details in the world of juggling and Flow Arts. The combined action of this work is what I call Fitness Praxis. Yet, there are so many areas which we can put our attention to, which ones...
How to Create an Act in 10 steps
One thing about juggling and Flow Arts that comes naturally out of practicing for a long time, is the desire to show someone what you have learned. It takes so much time and energy to get good at what you are doing, it's a natural progression to want to put it on...
The F.ball Made me a Better Performer
Five years ago, there was a product released called Fushigi. It was an attempt to sell contact juggling to everyone in North America, but unfortunately it was preceded by a terribly dishonest commercial. This commercial told North America that these balls “floated on...
5 types of Street Shows
Street performing has a wide variation and can be boiled down to about 5 types of street shows, all which vary greatly, but have their own sets of rules and why they work on the streets. The 5 shows you see are Circle, Atmosphere, Musicians, traffic lighting and the...
A Tool for the Mind, Body and Spirit
This article was written in 2004, before I became a performer. Photo of Yuki Ueda and Benjamin West at the Vancouver Art Gallery meet up Saturday Circus. If you pass by Science World on a sunny Tuesday afternoon, you will see pins flying through the air, people...
Elements of A World Class Performance
Image: Steven Ragatz performs at the ScotiaBank Buskers Festival in 2012 A world class performance requires us to be masters of many disciplines. If you’ve trained properly at a circus school - great! They likely taught you many of these tricks. But, if you’re self...
5 Books Every Performer Should Read
Do you have some rest time between training sessions where your body can’t physically move any longer but you still want to keep practicing? Here are some books every performer should read to deepen the understanding of the psychology of creativity, skill acquisition...
How to be a Good Circus Partner : 20 Day Duet Challenge
Duets have much more presence on stage than a solo piece. In some ways, I find duets protect you from the cliche pretentious solo juggling/flow act that is so easy to fall into. After all my experience in working with others I am relieved to find such a solid working...
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