A video essay on the reasons why people making two specific large juggling apparatus are singled out for criticism, despite no other juggling props, tricks or concepts are held to the same standard.
I'll wade in… Moschen's triangle routine clearly still stands up. As is often the case in artistic endeavours the original is the best (is there a better acid tune than Phuture's Acid Tracks?!). His ease with the prop is unrivalled. In creating the act he has created a new musical instrument (and they don't come around too often) where sound, structure and vision come together in an amazing way. I personally was drawn to the triangle because of the rhythmical possibilities and in creating my own piece my main criterion was to create something as rhythmically different to Moschen's as possible. Whether it is ok to perform in the triangle or cone brings up many issues and is made much harder if the originator makes it known that they don't think others should use the props. Ultimately I agree with Luke that once a pandora's box has been opened it is impossible to close the lid and that good things come from further experimentation. Clearly creative recognition has to be given and naming the prop after the originator seems a good start. For what it is worth I tried to contact Moschen for permission to use the triangle (sent emails and a letter to his agent and even a letter to what I believed to be Moschen's address) but never heard back.
This is the first vid I saw after seeing the triangle routine for the first time, literally 15 minutes ago. The hard left turn from "this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen!", to a straight 180○ of,"So, Moschen is a charlatan? That was actually really easy, I'm an idiot and every juggler hates him?" was WILD!
Ok i'll add my words on your thoughts for one precise point of your video wich bother me very much. I just watched the John Blanchard triangle version available on youtube (wich is amazing ofc) and what you say about it it's that there is a better sens of drama missing on the Moschen piece. To me it's the exact opposite of what you think and say ! If you look at the routine of John from a juggler's perspective you may see more performative moments yes. But the drama brought by Moschen in it's piece is also how he involves the body while perfoming all the routine (wich is totaly missing in John's act). How can you talk about drama in a living performance without taking care about the place of the body ??? The minute where, among you, nothing happens and wich is borring (to you only still) is actualy what brings even more drama. It brings rythms in the piece no because of it's own rythmicity but because it creates a real breaking point into the piece, and isn't this what drama is all about, breaks and suprises ? From a non juggler point of view he can only see something like a growing curve of difficulty of technical research in John's act. To me what brought Moschen piece out in modern juggling from the others isnt only the new prop and the technique involved in it, it's also a matter of composition and interpretation. The main problem here remains that I didn't see the show live, and the youtube version seems to be cutted off sometimes. My question is how does John brings the fourth ball into it for example. Tell me what you think about it. I still like this video for many reasons specialy for bringing me to think about that ;)
enough for what? people to steal his invention without asking him? its an ethics and morality debate... and no amount of "well others have stolen other things," or "no one else asks so why should i," or "he's fine, he doesn't need more money" will change that. what does money have to do with it anyway? its about respect. and not the world we are living in now, but the world we want to live in for the future. also, just to get the facts straight, michael spent that macarthur grant to make the PBS special which is where everyone saw the triangle in the first place!!!! so this whole idea that he has been "paid enough" is just ridiculous... it has nothing to do with anything. additionally, let's even say he did get half a million dollars... so you're saying that from there on out he doesn't deserve to make any money for his efforts? that makes no sense- so anyone who makes half a million dollars off of what they do then automatically don't deserve to make any more money off of what they do for the rest of their lives? what?
Nobody is stopping Michael and Greg making money off their inventions now, nor for the rest of their lives. Just like every other professional juggler, if they perform for audiences, they can get paid money. This is the world we live in: There is NO infrastructure for licensing juggling props, there is NO authority to enforce no-copying rules, there are NO laws or regulations in place for juggling trick ownership, there are NO legal firms that specialise in juggling prop infringement. What you are describing is a future I DO NOT want to live in. Maybe you do, but to me that looks like hell. Have you ever worked at a TV station and had to keep track of every piece of music used in every program for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week? Well I have, and it's a real pain. Do you want every juggler having to keep track of every prop and every trick and every concept they use in every show and performance, and work out licensing deals with every single person who created those things? If you DO want that kind of future, YOU must set up a world-wide bureaucracy to deal with it. Or do you want that kind of problem to be magically solved somehow? Maybe Greg has a contract between him and Cirque du Soleil, but it is not a contract with anyone else in the world. There is precedent for music licensing and video copyright and trademark registration and patent infraction, so it is understood what the rules are when making your own version of intellectual property belonging to others. But there is NO SUCH THING with juggling, no matter what some secret contract between Greg and Cirque du Soleil. You can't hold other jugglers to a non-existant (with the triangle) or secret (with the cone) set of rules that everyone has to guess at.
ok, that's all fine. i was simply responding to the statement in your video at 11:56 where your voice over seemed to imply, at least to me, that michael doesn't deserve to earn any more money from his triangle because he was awarded the macarthur grant.
Public Cones & Triangles in leisure centres, parks, theatres, gyms... maybe! Climbing wall & Pakour centre foyers would love too feature somthing like these, or at Festivals [Glasto or WOMAD, Green Gathering...Green Belt.... etc]
Choreography is intellectual property, not equipment. Various techniques or objects are paint brushes, notes, steps, or instruments. Unless the act is copied move for move, it's someone else's choreography and the more it resembles the original, the more it's done in poor taste. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to take classes with Michael Moschen when his career was just taking off. He was 27 at the time and I received a one-on-one session to work out choreography. I had most of the work finished but it needed some cleaning up. He had me remove every single toss that wasn't necessary. He wanted me to get it down to knowing the exact number of tosses and catches for the entire four minute routine and have clear reasons for each and every move and trick. The balls I used were silicone balls and these had very particular qualities which gave the juggling routine a home along with a very iconic piece of ragtime music. The balls were engineered by Brian Dubé. I didn't make the balls. It took incredible skill working with materials that I knew nothing about at the time and Brian Dubé was passionate about his prop making for jugglers. They had great bounce, were very visible and a weight that made toss juggling tricks as easy as they could be which wasn't easy, but easier than if the weight had been any lighter or heavier. Peter Davison did a lovely three ball act with smaller balls. The size of the balls were perfect for his act. He could force bounce five and then switch to a perfect five ball cascade directly. Just slightly larger balls and that trick is several times harder. I've explored many, many other types of balls and other props over many decades. Every object has its own unique signature. The signature of the props should be matched precisely with the choreography. My three ball act was choreographed to a ragtime piece by Billy Joel and to a large degree, the choreography was inspired by the structure of the music. I lowered the tempo and did some edits which was back in the analogue days. If the tempo had not been corrected and some phrases repeated, it would not have worked. Another juggler, Barret Felker, had used that music when performing with the Harlem Globetrotters and that is where I first heard the music. He used it more as background rather than juggling exactly to it. I wanted to try my hand(s) at it. If one element changes, it reverberates throughout the rest of an act and if the act doesn't know that, it's like a suit that never really fits. Everything is connected. So you can work with objects pre-built and then hang out in those domains. Or you can also dive into examining a very large range of materials, sizes, shapes and so on and have a lot of fun experiencing how those objects create new juggling acts if you approach the process in the right way. A subject for a much longer post... PS. I'm pretty sure Michael Moschen received $180k, not half a million.
Did these guys pay a license to the creator of the triangle and the cone? How 'bout Euclid, he gettin' a cut? I own the juggling dodecahedron, please don't steal.
An interesting study on the balance of respect, freedom and rights. Creative expression is essential, so it is noble to debate this balance. My personal feeling just to share and perhaps turn some new wheels on this thread, is that both the triangle and cone are less interesting than juggling without such props. There are elements of the arts that can focus excessively on mesmerizing, intellectual abstraction and artistic oddness. For all who are interested in the connection between Liberty and the value of its productive use, it is best to avoid selling such distraction. In the larger picture of the universe purity of motive is greatly rewarded and absorption in distraction leads to suffering. Because of these truths, personally, I believe that energy put into this issue would serve more productive purposes when invested in keeping performance arts more essentially relevant, character-based and connected to wisdom and awareness of the human circumstance. Avant-garde artistic expression and cutting edge engineering of creative performance formats often serve humanity generally by stirring creative powers and illuminating new potentials and horizons of meaning. They can also be a wasteful expression of William Shakespeare's concept of, "Sound and fury signifying nothing." Macbeth, in seeing the futility behind the shapes life takes, speaks an amazing statement about the nature of existence. Wassily Kandinsky is one of my favorite artists, so I embrace modernism and also abstraction. As a retired firefighter volunteer, I have seen that PowerPoint presentations can be overused (fire services internationally deal with so much fire science and medical knowledge and training that information sharing systems play large roles), and it is worth stepping out front and connecting directly with your audience. These types of props seem to me to create distance, separation and absorption / obsession with physics and diminish the role of the grace of the soul.
The video i needed to see now that i'm slowly starting my second juggling life that will not be based on technique so much but more so on ideas and concepts.
Luke, I think your argument is compelling, well thought out, and very well presented. I don't agree with your conclusion, but it is making me reconsider and re-justify my own position. I would add at least one more prop/idea to your short list including the Moshen Triangle and Kennedy Cone: The Menendez Bounce Piano. Dan's exclusive claim to ownership and singular ethical performance rights to this apparatus are at least as justified as the two you examine in your video, and I think the juggling community views them as such.
@@ScottyMeltzer I didn't include the bounce piano prop because it has more in common with magic tricks, and there is a whole other set of expectations with the ownership of illusions, etc.
It's a discovery that Dan made using the technology that came along during that time. Great idea. Invention? Not really. Anyone can try it for themselves. But why do that when there's so many novel interface ideas to be tried using juggling? It's just not much fun to copy it.
The original triangle absolutely holds up for me. The simple playfulness is its strength... to add flashier production would be to take away from it. I think if you were to innovate in any way with these large engineered props, you want to lean into that aspect of the performance and make the prop "more" somehow. Two triangles is a good example.
There needs to be a written essay, long logical and with more opinions of Jay Gilligan, you, and other notable jugglers. A video essay is too little to cover this topic. I nevertheless appreciate VERY much you made this video, thank you very much!!!!, but the topic deserves some closer analysis.
Yes. It's very much focused on forms without addressing processes that are more creative and offer better rewards than using the equipment that was designed for the person who did it first and then ends saying it's now ok.
From my assumption, it is more about taking other peoples trick or combinations and then taking credit for it that is upsetting. So as you stated naming a trick or prop after someone should from my standpoint be enough of a benefit to the creator though not monetarily. You of course have the same issues with comedians using each other jokes. From what I've seen from performers, you can make a living performing but it takes hard work and doesn't always come with a pension, so be nice and ask or give credit to other jugglers. I did once hear someone tell me that because this juggler will never come to my country it is 'OK' to take his entire act and do it in my countries language. It is a complex issue with many angles when a copyright is over.
Comedians stealing jokes is another issue from another genre of entertainment, and has nothing to do with juggling props, tricks or concepts. There is no copyright for juggling props or tricks or acts, so there are not "many angles when a copyright is over". There is no angle at all.
Great analysis, but I don't agree on the fact that they shouldn't earn more money on them. Of course people can copy and reinterpret the triangle and the cone, but I see it more like doing a cover of a song. They should pay royalties.
I agree to Luke. And disagree you. In music it should be same. The inventor of some music should be mentioned like in books, but not patented like is is now. Music is good example, because there the real inventor still gets less money than the one who promote it.
Ok, sure, they are points of view. But, so what about intellectual property? You think that it should not exist at all? What should be allowed to be patented and what not?
Patents should only be possible if developing the invention has had a proven cost of above 1 million US Dollars and should be strictly limited in time, to lets say 20 years. Patents and intellectual property slow down progress of our species, if copyright lasts 80+ years and some engineering firms operate as patent mills, filing hundreds of patents without the intent to actually build anything, just to fuck other people over who later have the same idea. In the current situation, which is quite crazy, we would be better off with NO patents and NO protection of intellectual property.
Im torn on the issue, what if the person who invented the violin or piano wouldnt allow others to use it? Give it a patent and sell it. Or pay royalties.
Yes. It seems like there's confusion over what is a piece of engineering, an instrument, prop making, a tool, a paint brush, etc. over what is actually solid intellectual property as in choreography, music, script, a beautiful work of art, etc. Anyone can try to make a statue of David. Go right ahead. Ultimately, when it's not done correctly it will just fade away in a rubbish heap one day.
As a musician I feel similarly with how music is made and copywritten. I strongly feel we are stifling creativity by crediting a riff/melody/lyric to a certain person or group and tie it up financially, the way it is. Don't get me wrong, i fully understand why that is, but I feel we are missing out artistically. If I wrote a killer song or recorded a new catchy riff that inspired another person to use it in their own way to express themselves, I'd find that an honor.
Why copy another juggler, i can see doing it for acquiring skill but on stage? No one wants to see the joe blow triangle they wanna see Moschens triangle and your selling it short by saying it doesn't require skill because of the ball return to about the same place, by that logic well shit it's all easy following a pattern will put the balls, pins ,rings right where you can catch it. I say this, juggling, object manipulation is a skill few really ever mastee and fewer still raise it to the degree of an art form because fewer still see deeper meaning in it as Michael Moschen has. I just hope he comes on stage with a pair of nunchaku now that would be frickin cool.
