JW: That sounds like the feeling when one first learns to juggle. As you're learning, it requires conscious thought. When you master it, though, it becomes automatic.

RT: That's also why site swaps are so interesting to me, because a site-swap specifically defines the height and placement of each throw so each motion of your hand is completely determined. That's very exacting. But once you get, for example, 6541, each of those four discrete motions blend into a single, flowing trick.

 

JW: How did you first become interested in site swaps?

RT: Site swaps are the most exciting thing to happen to juggling since hands ­ well, since multiplexing anyway. Joe Buhler, a mathematics professor at Reed College and inspiration to most every juggler who has come out of Oregon, first introduced me to site swaps. This helped me find a lot of four-ball tricks I didn't know, and now I'm starting to work on five-ball site swaps. Actually, the site swap idea has inspired me to learn more about mathematics. But even without the math, it's a great source of new tricks for any juggler.

 

JW: About your knife juggling finale - l've seen juggling catalogues that offer special juggling knives - knives that look sharp but aren't. You don't use those, do you?

RT: If you have the skill, why use a gimmick? As I explain in my show, "some jugglers use gimmicks, but never let it be said that I was swayed by maturity and common sense."And that's really how I feel about it. If you look right now at the knives I juggle (which include, among other objects, a circular saw blade, a sickle, a cleaver, a machete, and a bayonet), they are sharp. And why not? It's pretty basic juggling. Of course, I am doing it on a four-stack rola bola. And it leads to some cute jokes, for example, there's a big cleaver and a little cleaver, so I say "Do you want the Ward or the Beav?"

 

JW: How do you see your show developing in the future?

RT: Away from bad jokes like that, hopefully. I want to do more artistic material.

 

Artsy, educated audiences enjoy the new stuff I've been coming up with. They're eating up the weird allusions and dance choreography. But take that to a fair or school, and kids have no point of reference so they grope for the remote. I warn them,

 

"This is not television and I can prove it... I can poke you in the eye!" I expect I'll drift away from the big stunts on the ladder as I grow older and sorer. I'm never going to be a seven club juggler. I'll be lucky if I can eventually get nine balls, but I'll try. So I'd like to maintain a solid middle level circus ability - less a Gatto and more a Menes, Gawd willing. I want people to say "Wow, he was really funny and he's got tricks I've never seen."

 

JW: Can you elaborate on some of your recent artistic work?

RT: In Portland, Oregon there's an annual arts festival called Artquake. For that, I put together a juggling routine using a lot of four-ball juggling. I used a lot of site swap, a lot of traditional four-ball stuff, and all to a Dave Brubeck piece in 5/8 or 7/8 time. It was an obscure rhythm, but it fit four-ball juggling beautifully. That, to me, was a "shut-up and juggle" routine. Ordinarily, I have no background music when I perform because I'm talking. In this routine, I worked with music, and that was rewarding. Occasionally I work with Echo Theatre in Portland, which does performance art theatre, and I get to do more artistic work there. I did a dance-oriented show in Seattle with Ping Chong, a widely­known performance artist. Eventually, I would like to put together 90-minute theatre-oriented shows and tour them to high schools and colleges where some of the intellectual banter might be appreciated. As I say, I'd like to "tour it to debt."

 

JW: Do you see this happening in the next few years?

RT: Oh yes, it's the only direction I can go. To stay interested, I have to do more and more creative work. Otherwise, I'll bum out. I have some irons in the fire as far as grants are concerned in the Oregon arts community, where I'm becoming fairly well­known. I'd also like to teach serious students. Every trick I reinvented from a photo or a paragraph in a book can be taught in a tenth of the time it took me to puzzle it out.

 

JW: Have you ever taught juggling?

RT: In the early 1980s I taught circus arts with Wavy Gravy, the Grateful Dead Clown and (1969) Woodstock emcee. I've also taught, and still teach, at the Jefferson High School for the Performing Arts, in Portland, Oregon, a big performing arts magnet with an amazing theatre program. The Jefferson Dancers, for example, are known throughout the Northwest. These are a bunch of high school kids who are just phenomenal.

 

JW: Have you ever envisioned having a juggling school?

RT: I have given that some thought. I've thought about having a circus arts space where anyone of any age, anyone who's interested, could come and learn. There would be classes at all levels, guest lecturers, and so on. A second thought is to have a youth circus. For example, what do you do if you're an inner city kid and you want to stay off the streets, not get into drugs, but you don't play basketball? Physical theatre would be great for these kids. There's also more funding for that than for adult theatre training. You could start with that, create shows with the kids, then tour those shows to other schools.

 

JW: Would you create those shows, or would the kids?

RT: I would develop the shows with the kids, acting as a catalyst. That would be my ideal job. I've always thought the perfect job would be "catalyst for hire," a kind of roving think tank.

 

JW: Any final thoughts?

RT: Be original. Look to the past. Share what you learn. Push, nay, lick the envelope of creativity! It hasn't made me wealthy and it's frustrating as hell, but I love this job.

 

Peter D. Mark teaches computer science at Seattle University, and juggles with the Cascade Jugglers from time to time.