The Ministry of Manipulation » Search Results » francis+brunn

What is Bodyrolling?

Drew — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:09:03 +0000

Bodyrolling is a one of the 4 main types of contact juggling, here is a video definition of bodyrolling.

Franckfort: By Franck / Mika Quartz from Paris.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the best there ever was Francis Brunn, he included some amazing body contact in his performances, more Francis Brunn.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rythmic Gymnasts perform some incredible body rolls, this Bodyroll Montage is assembled from the Ministry archives. If you want to learn Bodyrolling, Rhythmic gymnastics balls are one of the easiest balls to learn with.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Jeanine Ebnother.

More bodyrolling videos can be found on the blog.
Do you have suggestions of videos you think should be on this page? Please post them in the comments below.

Francis Brunn – 1969 video

Drew — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 23:04:58 +0000

Click here to view the embedded video.

Embedding disabled: CLICK HERE for the video
Yay, Brunn. He was incredible, this video is a new one for me.
Thanks to Lorenzo! the hat juggler for the link. He says:

Really good quality video, uploaded by the famous handstand artist Oleg Izossimov.

So thanks to Oleg too.

Kyle Johnson – Interview and Video

Ryan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 01:31:53 +0000

Kyle - Interview and Video at ww.MinistryofManipulation.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

New video from the inhumanly talented Kyle Johnson, entitled “Smile, I know you want to…”

Interview with Kyle:

> Where do you live?

I live in Rocklin, California

> Is there a community of contact jugglers where you are?

Not really, maybe one or two others in my area but they dont focus on it. But I do sometimes go down to The Vulcan in Oakland which has a plethora of new juggling tricks that are contact based with all kinds of props, done by the very talented jugglers that live there.

> How would you describe contact juggling?

oh man… I like in In Isolation when nobody knows how to answer this question, because I don’t either. : )
It is constantly being added onto and evolving so it makes it hard to describe. Like a non juggler trying to count how many balls while they are being juggled.

> Why do you contact juggle?

Well the reason has changed many times, but basically its to learn, and I’ve learned a lot! Not just about juggling but in life, that so much more is possible than you think, if you can focus.

> What is the best piece of contact juggling that you’ve ever seen?

Well, the body rolls done by Enrico Rastelli, Francis Brunn, and Jeanine Ebnöther for a start, palmspinning of Drew Batchelor and Moon, and for isolation type contact its got to be Ryan, Ed and Colin have the best stuff I’ve seen, pretty much all of MOM : ). Best “piece” would have to be Jeanine’s BJC routine that was posted not too long ago or Kelvin Kalvus’ Das Supertalent performance… and Manne Hanke. The best piece changes all the time, sometimes back to older videos… I watch a lot of them.

> What do you think about when you are contact juggling?

Doing the trick correctly, then if I stray I drop… and I’m easily distracted.

> What is the future of contact juggling?

I hope jugglers will start doing more full body rolls and/or using their legs more. I know that there are way more flexible people then me out there, with a lot more possible tricks.

> Anything else you’d like to say to our MoM audience?

Thank you for watching, and now go juggle!

Kyle previously on MoM:
Barefoot Contact Juggling

Nathalie Enterline – Hat & Cane

Drew — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:23:13 +0000

Don’t watch:

Click here to view the embedded video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UH_hLSLhcCk
Do watch:
jtv – From the Old School Jugglers DVD. Recorded from German TV(?)
How have we managed not to post the incredible Nathalie Enterline on MoM before.
Previously mentioned here.
Above are 2 very similar routines to the same music, the JTV clip is better to watch but we can’t embed JTV clips.

The History of Ball Contact & Manipulation

Drew — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 12:27:22 +0000

Balls have been played with in many cultures around the world for thousands of years. Historically several things were united to form the origins of modern Contact:

Chinese medicine ball palmspinning
General manipulation and magic
1 ball body rolling
Object Balancing

Chinese Medicine Ball Palmspinning

A technique with strong Oriental origins is palmspinning with small metal Chinese health balls, also known as “Baoding balls”, “medicine balls”, “therapy balls” “iron balls”. This is the ancestor of Multiball Contact techniques and can be traced back to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
A little more about Chinese medicine balls.

General Manipulation and Magic

For example the famous billiard ball manipulation routine from the magician Cardini in the mid-20th Century. It’s a lovely routine with Cards and cigarettes, but the real important bit starts at 5:00 min:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Cardini in action – Watch from 5:00 to 5:55min for billiard ball manipulation, including a cradle

1 Ball Body Rolling

This has origins in Asia using a woven basket ball (see Chinlone). It came to the West in the 1800s, brought by highly skilled “oriental jugglers” who inspired incredible body rollers including; Paul Cinquevalli (1859-1918), Enrico Rastelli (1896-1931) and Francis Brunn (1922/3-2004).

Today, some of the best body rolling skills can be seen in Rhythmic Gymnastics, which has existed since the 1880s and has been an Olympic sport since 1984.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Rythmic Gymnast Bodyroll Montage – From the Ministry archives

In the 1970s and 80s several manipulators and jugglers were independently developing what was later to become Ball Contact.

Notable amongst them was Tony Duncan, who in summer 1978 developed moves incorporating “forearm rolls” and “half butterflies” (half of the 1 ball “butterfly” movement) into juggling and in 1983 and had a 1 ball routine of “Dynamic Balancing” (the name he prefers “Contact Juggling”). With Multiball, he was working on 3 ball separated palm rolling cascades in 1980. This pioneering Contact was to be totally eclipsed by that of Michael Moschen.

A milestone in the development of Modern Contact was the routine “light” by Michael Moschen in 1985…. Next Page»

Francis Brunn – Interviews, Articles & Obituaries

Drew — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:43:34 +0000

“I find that I am fascinated by controlling one ball. It sounds like nothing, but it is quite difficult to do properly.” – Francis Brunn

An attempt to link to all the Brunn articles and pages on the web, if there are any missing, please email, or post in the comments below.

Interviews
A long and detailled Francis Brunn Interview from the IJA Newsletter, May 1981 By Gene Jones, (then) IJA President
Starts “My father was in a French prison camp in World War I. From behind barbed wire he saw a circus juggler warming up, and out of boredom he took three stones and tried it. Later, he showed me how using oranges..”

Francis Brunn and Natalie Enterline interviewed in Kascade 1996 Quote: “Don’t believe everything you read about Rastelli.”
Natalie Enterline was 1978 World Champion Baton Twirler. She combines her twirling skills with hat and cane manipulation and dancing and used to assist Francis Brunn in his act.
Now dead link: German site – jonglerie.de with great photos of FB from the archive of Karl-Heinz Ziethen. (also a photo of Natalie Enterline).

Articles
Short Article by KARL-HEINZ ZIETHEN IJA Newsletter, October / November 1978 Volume 30 No. 6
Juggling hall of fame – Francis Brunn
Juggler’s World: Vol. 38, No. 1 1986? Francis Brunn – After almost 50 years, Brunn still looks forward rather than back.
Brunn told Juggler’s World magazine that he had nothing to prove.
“I can understand why a man wants to run the fastest 100 meters, but I don’t believe in juggling competitions,” he said. “It’s like seeing who could paint the fastest painting.”
Brunn filmography on IMDB
“Francis Brunn” on Wikipedia
Some more people Brunn inspired (it would be easier just to write everybody!):
Brunn inspired Michael Moschen
Brunn helped Philippe Petit in his bid to walk tightrope between world trade centre towers

Obituaries 2004
Dick Franco writes (already posted last week)
The Villager
Blog of Death

“For me, the biggest success is when the audience stays quiet” – Francis Brunn

Ernst Montego Kuhn

Drew — Thu, 19 Oct 2006 21:06:53 +0000

If theres a gene for Juggling, its strong in the Brunn family. From Big Sky Film Festival:
Dance of Sisyphus
86 minutes, 2003 Super 16mm, Germany
By Bert Schmidt
“Ernest Montego, born Ernst Kuhn in Aschaffenburg, Germany in 1936, has been a juggler for over 50 years…. As a twelve year old, he went to the cinema and saw the duo Francis and Lottie Brunn in the Bavaria film “Tonelli” – and decided that juggling would be his future. What he didn’t realize at the time was that his choice of career was actually influenced by his own half-brother and -sister, an internationally famous juggling team who had made a name for themselves in the USA with the greatest circus in the world: “Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey”. A quarter of a century after that decisive visit to the cinema, Ernest Montego, now a master juggler himself, finally met his half-brother and in Las Vegas….”

Has anyone seen this documetary, or know where we can get a copy? Link to strandfilm the film producers site in German > scroll down to 2003.

Montego (pictured above) performed in a similiar way to Brunn – high skill, big balls and mouth sticks. I can only find one video of Montego online, here are 2 links to the same video – that sword opening is fantastic: ErnestMontego.mov ErnestMontego.mov

Ernest Montego is listed for 10 rings in 1957. his act finish you will see on the .mov above, is basically the Brunn finish… on a unicycle!

Another link to a vhs, scroll down to Hollywood Pallace Volume 1 ita a video vhs of a brunn performance from 1964 availiable to buy on VHS in the states for $14. Has anyone seen this and can give us a review?
Smiles
Drew

Brunn’s Act Still Lives

Drew — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:53:52 +0000

That picture is not of Brunn, it’s his nephew: Michael Chirrick, is Lotte Brunn’s son, he was taught by Brunn.

On his site you’ll find 5 videos, 4 of Chirrick (the 5th is the Lotte and Brunn Documentary already posted) if you’re only watching 1, then go for the Highlights video.

Now here’s a game to play, with the 2 Francis Brunn routines posted over the last 2 days, and all these, Michael Chirrick performances. You have fundamentally the same routine performed over at least 5 decades. Check out the changes, in performance and style. I’m particularly fond of the 1979 clip, its like Brunn with white Lycra, Moustache and Nunchuku.

Michael Chirrick is an incredibly talented dude. Based on the video’s posted here alone, It seems that Chirrick can easilly perform all of Brunns most impressive material, but I’d say “Francis Brunn – greatest Juggler the world has ever known.” Has that certain style, that certain presentation, which elevates his performances to a another level.
But, Bravo to Chirrick, I’m glad to see someone is continuing, keeping alive (a derivation of) Brunn’s Act. Fantastic. One day I hope to see him perform this on stage, not just on this little screen.
Smiles,
Drew.

Francis Brunn Photographs

Drew — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:48:47 +0000

Today’s first link is Francis Brunn pictures and obituary thanks to Dick Franco (another juggling legend).
Dick Franco writes: “Francis was a warm man with a great sense of humor. We spent many hours together in Italy, practicing, talking and, of course, drinking beer.”
(note: Dick Franco’s site has very good words and pictures and is worth a look, but the coding is a bit shakey, I get overset text in both Firefox and IE, if you want to read it without any text overlaying go to view>page style>no style).

Today’s second link was a very pleasent surprise, an incredible collection of photographs of Brunn from Olivier Blaise on picturetank, including the 2 in this post.
He’s a photojournalist. Although. I can’t believe he took all the photos, some of them are a bit too old. Merde, I say, I wish I’d paid more attention to French lessons in School, then I’d be able to understand.
There’s a photo of Francis Brunn with Muhammed Ali, “I am the greatest”, a famous quote of Ali could have applied just as well to Brunn.
While you are there its worth a look at the rest of Olivier Blaise’s photos inclucing Tom Noddy (Bubble), Kris Kremo, Kosen Kagami Japanese Juggler, general Juggling and the MicroDrones are fun too.
Anyone got any other photos or videos of Brunn.
More to come in Brunn week.
Smiles
Drew

Repost of Brunn Finland Video from 2 days ago with new link

Drew — Tue, 17 Oct 2006 21:43:05 +0000

Big respect and thanks to Little Paul for capturing and rehosting the first Brunn video as a downloadable wmv. (30Mb)
Francis & Lotte Brunn @ Cabaret Kaivohuone, Helsinki, Finland 1947 now downloadable