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A break-through followed, in the form of his wellknown work with crystal balls, which seem to shimmer and float in space. On a Vermont farm over a period of several months, he evolved his way of developing material. He felt a strong attraction to working with the particular object, but only by figuring out his own techniques with it, starting with its simplest form and "listening to it, trying to let it impress me and then responding to it," could he find out what it meant to him. "I didn't know how to work with the crystal ball," he says. "You don't just toss it up, it's too beautiful, too fragile." He started with just one ball, worked out his own rules for the piece, deciding never to close his hand around it. Then he experimented with twiddling several balls in one hand-a technique that usually has comic overtones - and developed it further with his own imagery of light. The evanescent ball represented for him a way to deal with the fragility of life and, too, an opening up to the sense of touch.

Then came the stick piece, with a feeling opposite to the crystal balls. He associated the metal rods with the use of tools in his work as a carpenter: "With simple tools you can make very complex things. It was important to me at the time to try to understand my world by giving shape to it." Even aside from the sexual connotations of the rods, they represented for him a masculine kind of power.

Moschen doesn't expect or want the audience to be overtly conscious of such specific factors behind his work, but just "the fascination and the almost hypnotic quality, the process of involvement, the sense of creative questioning about life."

He has toured extensively with clown Bob Berky, who has helped Moschen find his own kind of humor in his work, and with Fred Garbo. In 1985 he and Berky appeared at BAM as "The Alchemedians." He has also performed in Bill Irwin's "Not Quite/New York" and "The Courtroom," and in the films "Hair," "Annie," and "Labyrinth," where he served as David Bowie's hands. He has also been featured on the avantgarde performance series on television, "Alive from Off Center." He's toured all over the world, in South America, Australia, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia as well as Europe. "Being able to travel is beautiful," he says. "If you're open to people, it'll change your work."

He used to teach extensively, but no longer. "I always found that the innocence of people who didn't know how to juggle was beautiful," he says. "I could control the environment enough not to squash their creativity and vulnerability, and to encourage them to make mistakes, because that opens you up. Then you'll learn about what control is. But the people that I taught who were very accomplished technically were the most resistant to exploration.

"I had a terrible experience at the Movement Theater Festival in Philadelphia [two years ago]. The advanced class literally started strangling each other, tripping each other, sabotaging each other and me, because they couldn't face the fact that they couldn't control one ball and their body. I wasn't trying to shame anybody, I was trying to see how they could find another basis to start from, for understanding what a juggler is for themselves. And then a number of people tried to steal my material - I performed down there with Bob Berky. It just became an untenable situation, and I ended it in a very dramatic fashion. I was just pushed too far."

Other instances, too, of people copying his material or taking credit for discoveries that he has taught them have been further reason for disaffection. "To take the simplest, least challenging route of taking somebody else's work instead of developing your own doesn't make any sense. Life has to be about risks," he

declares with some vehemence. "Art is about a certain kind of truth. And in circumstances when people have stolen my material, either students or whatever, the deepest anger that I've had is that it's a violation of a kind of truth."

Moschen's daily rehearsal schedule changes all the time according to the needs of the moment. Some days he might rehearse less because he's doing other kinds of research, in books, a sculpture studio or art galleries, or working with collaborators, to whom he attaches great importance. He uses a fast warm-up or a slow warm-up depending on the circumstances, getting the circulation going and doing stretches. For relaxation, he still likes to play golf and to work with his hands.

Asked for advice to young jugglers, he says, "For chronologically young jugglers, I would say work as hard as you can at what you love, and try to know your limitations, because then you have the possibility of extending them. For [adults] who are new to juggling, try to learn about the history of juggling, and use your brain." He feels it's useful to rehearse with a mirror, looking back and forth from what you are doing to what the objects are doing.

He continues, "Combine as quickly as possible rather than learning isolated tricks. That's the way to discipline yourself to have the possibilities of making an act." He stresses "the process of learning about yourself while you're learning the skills. There are plateaus you reach in any physical endeavor, and then something will sort of rattle your cage, and you say, 'Oh, my god, I don't know anything,' and then you can move on."