While at the Renaissance Faire...

[Bikewer]

Went to the local run of the Renaissance Faire here in St. Louis (Wentzville, actually) last week, and had a great time. Perfect weather, lots of fun entertainment, and pirates....

Anyway, one of the acts was "Jamison the Juggler", who among other bits did a sort-of-dance routine that was fascinating, and we are both unfamiliar with same.
Essentially, Jamison had two solid-glass (or so they appeared) balls on the end of ropes. He would begin to twirl these rapidly, adjusting the rope length until they began to tap rapidly on the stage.
Then, he'd begin to dance, using the clacking impacts of the balls in a manner not unlike castanets.
This was a very physical style, and "Jamison" was rapidly undergoing a lot of exertion.
At one point, he pulled a "volunteer" up on stage and used the spinning ball to knock a feather from the poor fellow's mouth.

Pretty impressive show, and I don't know if this is a one-off performance the fellow invented, or if this act has some historical precedents.

[Tanstaafl]

I've been to the Renaissance Festival many times here in Arizona, and I've never seen or even heard of this show. But I might have just missed it, I suppose.

I mostly just make sure I always catch the Ded Bob show.

[JoeTheJuggler]

Sounds like a modified version of poi swinging, which originally comes from New Zealand. Check out the home of poi (http://www.juggling.co.nz/).

Otherwise, there are a lot of interesting ways of mixing juggling (and the like) with rhythm. My sometime partner does juggling with tap dance. I play free-handed harmonica (holding it in my teeth) with hand clickers (to emphasize the sound of the clubs on catch) and thumping my head while juggling clubs. I've also done a juggling one-man band (drums on the back, taps on the shoes, harmonica, kazoo and whistles on a rack, bulb horns on the tops of shoulders, etc.) Michael Moschen does a lot with rhythm and ball bouncing, including his large wooden triangle. A friend of mine does a similar thing with ball bouncing on a large drum (he can do Carmen--well with recorded music accompaniment). Dan Menendez popularized bounce juggling into a large piano (electronic keyboard). The Flying Karamazovs do all sorts of musical/rhythmic juggling bits (the hand clickers, backdrums, the electronic drum suit, xylophone, tap dancing etc.)

[Bikewer]

The Poi thing certainly looks related; I'll have to check out that rather extensive site when I have more time.

We used to have a group of jugglers that hung out at the same club we did, Gravity's Last Stand. They were pretty good; they even juggled my wife once!

We loved the Karamazov Brothers, they always put on a good show.