Five and a half years after starting MoM, we have; 1 book, 2 weddings, several MoM workshops, and over 1 000 000 unique visitors (according to our stats counter).
And this is MoM’s 1000th blog post.
Phew.
Thanks for reading, and here’s to the next 5 years.
The above image is from theFlickr acrylic balls pool. by Maido of Japan.
Smiles
Drew
Aragorn Boulanger aka Bishop and Ed Adams of the Ministry have decided to team up to bring you the most in-depth and high level Isolation and Illusions workshops ever given.
Aragorn will be responsible for making the impossible possible as he teaches Animation techniques with the body. He will mostly work on time perceptions and distortions. The stillness, or immobility, will be the first step. But it is to discover laws of the flow. Isolation will be a priory skill of course but we won’t spend much time on this. There will be more focus on global time and living movement awareness. That’s how Aragorn will introduce energy changes and bring pupils to popping, ticking, strobing, rewind, matrix effects, etc…
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We’ve been rather quiet about the European Juggling Convention this year because we’re sad not to be at our favorite juggling and manipulation festival. This year, it has a live stream , by Nathan Rae EJC live: Where the European Juggling Convention comes to you.
For me it’s generally stuttering too much to be watchable, pausing every 3 seconds to buffer 
But I’ll keep trying.
Last night featured Kelvin doing his thing with 1 and 2 acrylics in the open stage, which was amazing.
If there’s nothing live at the moment, there are a bunch of recorded highlights you can watch, my favorite is:
Be sure to stay to the end of the clip for a great ending!
[Edit: updated with Youtube link, cos ustream doesn't work so well: thanks Divus]
Video made by Luminous Fractal (how cool is that. He should have been on stage!!)
Good stuff all around, some great manipulators on stage in this teaser clip from the 2010 Madskillz Gala show.
From the 30th July to the 1st August, A new festival is going to launch itself on the manipulation/movement scene.
Held in Bury St. Edmunds, Elements of Flow aims to bring together the finer techniques of martial arts, dance, circus skills and alternative therapies into one big field of Self learning. If you look at their webpage, you’ll see they have some truly amazing teaching line ups.
I’ve been booked to teach Workshops in Multiball and incorporating movement into your contact juggling, as well as Matt Hennem teaching single ball contact, along with the myriad of other circus skills and martial arts they are providing workshops for, as well as what looks to be a truly entrancing show!
I for one, am really looking forward to hanging out and teaching there. Hope to see as many people as possible. 
Tickets are available now through http://www.elementsofflow.com
A new infomercial marketing campaign in the U.S. threatens to rebrand contact juggling into…. Fushigi?
Update: If You are looking to get into Contact juggling, The best deal for an acrylic ball at the moment is an 85mm Acrylic ball from Home of Poi, you might also want to read MoM’s ball guide.
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There is a very special Christmas tree at www.contactjuggling.org.
Every year (since 2004) users from the site create new videos and place them under the tree for the delight of all contact jugglers worldwide on Christmas morning. This years tree (LINK) is set up to be awesome, with a new batch of videos ready to be uploaded and will be appearing in the thread very soon!
Previous Years
2004 , 2005 , 2006 , 2007 , 2008 , 2009
Are you a fan of the annual tradition? Post youtube links to your favorite videos from past DotOrg Xmas Trees, and I’ll embed the videos in the comment section.
Workshop Details sent through from NoFitState Circus of a new class with the master of wigglly ball magic; Matt Hennem:
24th and 25th October 10.00-4.00
Cost £40 members £60 non-members
This 2 day masterclass will teach and explore illusionary movement and object manipulation. Email education(at)nofitstate.com for details. (The Ministry is assuming that this workshop is in Cardiff, Wales.. NoFitState never really mentioned this but their company is based there…)
No experience necessary – the class is devised to be totally accessible to complete beginners but will also challenge experienced jugglers, dancers, illusionists – anyone in fact. . .
The class will cover leans, glides, slides, moonwalk, popping, body/object based fixed point isolation, ball manipulation and more. . .
Learn from one of the top cabaret acts on the scene -
“a triumph. . . He conjures that rare magic that is no less entrancing for being simple.” – The Telegraph
“. . . simple and beautiful, inviting the suspension of disbelief as he seemingly levitated a crystal ball.” MusicOMH.com
Check out Matt’s Liquid Crystal Promo here:
http://juggling.tv/video/27/liquid-crystal
And his spot in the Ministry 2006 EJC video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6Q_RGPHKjg
Ronan mailed us with this video, from the 2008 Clonakilty Juggling Convention.
This year’s convention will be on September 25th-27th 2009 – You’ve got one month until the awesomeness of the 5th Clonakilty Object Manipulation and Movement Convention in Ireland.
Current Artist list:
Matthias Romir (Experimental Club and Ball Juggling)
Aragorn Boulanger “Bishop” (Dance)
Nico (Contact Ball)
Nicolas Longuechaud (Hoop Manipulation)
Camille P (Club Swinging and Manipulation)
Cecilia Manfrini and Lukas Wiesner (Acrobatics, Contortion, Juggling)
Meg Claire Pike “MCP” (Staff)
Darragh McLoughlin (Ball Juggling)
Chloe De Buyl Pisco (Dance)
Ronan McLoughlin (Poi)
Poooooooo, it’s the weekend that term starts for me. Arrrrrrg.
[Ninja] 
Mmmmmmmministry Berlin 2009…
Oh my god it was an amazing experience. we had people coming to us all the way from Australia and the United States… not to mention most of Western Europe being represented there. Such a large group of friendly, inspiring and interesting people helped to make the week in Berlin the huge success that it was.
Take 40 jugglers from all over the world, add in a twist of Jea9, a squeeze of Moon, a handful of Kelvin, A sprig of Colin and Ed, and then season with a pinch of Meg, and you end up with an official workshop of epic proportions. My brain is only just recovering, and I was one of the teachers! I hope the students will be able to come and give us their accounts soon too, but I think we melted their brains pretty bad…
Anyway, in the meantime whilst the we take the time to separate all the awesome moments that make up one amazing week in order to bring you a more coherent review, I’ll leave you hanging some more with the video trailer, sent to us today by Lhupo, who was commissioned by the Katakomben to film the event. Look out for an article in Kaskade magazine too…
More Lhupo: Lhupo’s channel on youtube
[/Ninja]
Ok, there have been some changes to the line up for the April workshop.
Unfortunately and with great regret, I must announce that Mr. OM is no longer going to be making an appearance at our workshops in Berlin on the 6-10th April. But fear not. Taking his place on the team is once again Emanuele ‘Moon’ Marchione, who will be teaching Multiball, from small to very large numbers. Moon’s innovative style of Multiball will be a fantastic addition to our line up, and we’re all very glad to have him with us once again.
Jeanine has also confirmed some workshops in Club and Staff Contact/Manipulation from Meghan ‘MCP’ Pike, which I am quite excited about. With the success of her tutorial website, DVD and highly technical spinning ability, I feel that Meg will be quite an asset at the workshops. Be prepared for some brain melting.
one other thing, last I heard, 40 places had gone already… If you haven’t booked yet, I’d get it in quick…
The Ministry have just launched their London advertising campaign for the MoM Berlin Contact Juggling workshops We recommend you sign up soon, as places are filling up fast. Details on MoM. and Katakomben.
All set to be bigger, better and more fab than last year.