Bound for Budapest
i’ve given up on balls; blocks are an interesting challenge, but hoops… thats where my heart lies.

I am going to budapest on Tuesday to work with the lovely miss Anna Harazti (dancer and manipulation artist.) She has come to London many times over the last few years to visit my studio, and now its her time to play host. I’m excited.. never been to budapest.

Anna and i have been obsessed by hoops since we met at the British Contact Juggling convention 3 years ago. The first time she came to London, we spent 2 days searching every corner of the city for hula-hoops that we could modify into mirrored circles. I remember the story of the day i finally found them.. in a pound shop in Camden. I spent the afternoon taping them up with reflective circus tape, and met Anna that night to see Cirque Eloize at the Barbican. I brought her back to my place after the show, and surprised her with two new hoops. We ran to the park… a summer night in London, and played in the moonlight.

The next year we met up north.. walked through forests and fields to the Beard Juggling Factory to purchase new hoops and balls. We returned to London with shiny new equiptment and spent a week together developing new material. This is where the plan began to make a piece for performance at weddings… Her and I, hoops, and a narrative about love and discovery. Sadly, the plan never came together, we both moved onto other project in the winter, and I couldn’t find funding. But we met again this year, spent another week together, and now I am heading out to her part of the world… its due time she plays host, and we’ve got unfinished work to do.

Hoops, by the way, are brilliant. And I don’t mean hula-hooping.
I mean manipulation… Michael Moschens mid-80’s ”Circles” routine.