Higher Resolution version
The 2008 Victoria Juggling Festival is fast approaching: March 14-16.
Here’s a taste of the upcoming awesomeness edited by the wonderful Dawn (and Ryan). Enjoy!

OCCJD Contact Juggler, Daydream Dawn is one of the organisers, she writes:

Ryans MC’ing the public show, all the wicked Canadian contact jugglers will gather - we are also trying to find all the fire community and spinners, to get the jugglers, manipulators, spinners and acrobats together in one convention.

Sounds like a recipe for a great event.

JTV High Quality Link

Perspex Cube
Acrylic Balls
Plastic & Aluminium hoops

Contact Juggling by Ryan Mellors.

The Hangar [WEBSITE LINK] is a circus studio in East London that the Ministry of Manipulation has called home for many years. Today, June 20th, the residents of the Hangar must leave the studio to make way for the 2012 Olympic developments.

Ryan lived and trained in the Hangar for 3 years. Drew was a regular visitor, and much of ”Multiball Contact” was drafted during his stay in the studio during the winter of 2005. Jeanine came to visit us during the summer, and Colin and Ed became regular guests in 2006.

The Hangar is documented in the following videos.
Hangar Workshop
Hangar Workshop (promo)
Contact at the Hangar (Available via In Isolation DVD)
Ryan Practice

And of course, most famously, Hangar Fun.
To mark the occasion, enjoy this High-Quality remastered version.
Enjoy.

From all of us at the Ministry, we bid a fond farewell to this magical studio.

Ryan Mellors lead a Contact Juggling and Manipulation workshop in Vienna on May 16th, 2007.

Workshop Description:

What is manipulation? How can we tell if an object is isolated, and how do we correct our technique? How can we build more complicated illusions? And how can we use these techniques in our performances?

This one day intensive workshop is aimed at all levels of jugglers/circus performers interested in developing new material with a single prop. Through group work and individual skill-builing, Ryan Mellors (Canada / England) will lead exercises in movement and manipulation, assisting the students in developing new material and giving them a basic foundation in movement techniques such as mime, bodypopping, liquid and other illusional movement styles.

Contact Juggling techniques will be taught with 1 ball and this will serve as the basis for a lot of the exercises, but students will be encouraged to move beyond the ball and integrate their own props into much of the workshop. Jugglers of all skill levels and dancers are invited to attend, and they are encouraged to bring whatever props they wish to develop material with.

UPDATE:
Check THIS PAGE for an article detailing the workshop experience.
For more Info: contact David

I know, I know.. I’m a juggler and not a beatboxer. But this turned out kinda nice…

Ok… 2 things I need to say about this late night renegade show [Google Video Link] that Aaron Gregg and I hosted:

(1) This clip was taken from a 2 hour improvised show I hosted with Aaron Gregg. It was approaching midnight, and an audience member dared me to beatbox. I had been practicing Kenny Muhammad’s Drum n’ Bass track for a couple weeks and thought ‘why not?…’

(2) I think its a shame that the whole act isn’t online, because at the end Aaron Gregg and Matt Hall battled it out and it was actually pretty wicked.

I did some editing work this winter for the Vancouver Circus School, and wanted to share one of my videos here on the Blog. This Kay Meeks video was taken from a corporate show that the performance group did, and it showcases a lot of their talent, notably:
Chris Murdoch - Contact Juggling and Fire Staff
Jake West - Diablo and Drumming
Nigel Wakita - Yo-yo

I will be performing on the renegade stage at Oregon State University on Saturday March 31st. I will also be teaching an advanced contact juggling workshop (balls and other props) at the Pacific Northwest Juggling Convention.

A cartoon monster attacks a city.

More details soon… I hope to meet some of the American contact jugglers there!
Click here for convention details

In 2004, Ryan Mellors [Ministry] and Remy Holwick [Contact Juggling Part 2 DVD] released a video on CJ DotOrg

The Dot Org Xmas tree’s first ever video submission was ”Half and Half.”

A video (appropriately) in two parts, Half and Half opens with a lonely christmas scene in a diner and features some… miscellaneous manipulations. The 2nd part of Half and Half (starting at 3:30) is a funky contact juggling video full of shiny christmas goodness.

Its Christmas week on MoM! Check back all through the week for plenty more Xmas contact juggling media, and get ready for all the surprises on December 25th!

The London workshop at the Hangar is no longer operating. Ryan has moved back to Vancouver, and The Hangar is being torn down to make way for the London 2012 Olympics.

Ryan writes:

I cut this video together out of footage from the last workshop. Its worth watching… the beginning of the video is about the Hangar and the aerial classes that they offer, and the main section of the video is a montage of moments from the evening of juggling and manipulation. The end of the video is when the real obsessive juggling kicks in.. and I head to bed at 2am.

My pumpkin this year… one of Banksy’s rats.

Nowhere near as detailed as some of the pumkins at pumpkingutter.com, but I’m still pretty happy with how it turned out.

Ryan [Ministry]

Welcome
to the The Hangar,

a circus training studio in East London.

CLICK HERE TO ENTER

Browse the site for more info on our class schedules, one to one circus workshops, rehearsal space hire, performers and more. Our ‘Artists in Residence‘ page will link you to the homepages of other Hangar residents, including Aircraft Performance, Ockams Razor and Ryan Mellors from the Ministry of Manipulation.

Artists - The Hangar offers residence to a small group of full-time circus artists. Space is available to these individuals whenever the Hangar is not booked, and weekly classes are set up to subsidize the cost of living.

Because of the Olympic Developments in East London, The Hangar is set to be closed� and relocated by July 2007.

Ministry members Ryan & Colin bust out in an impromptu bodyrolling/isolation battle at the European Juggling Convention.