Founder's Day

I've done hundreds of juggling shows, but not so many solo ones.  My first official juggling performance was during a math camp called the Rutgers Young Scholars Program.  Near the end of the program they had a talent show.  Since I had brought juggling to RYSP that year, I was encouraged to prepare an act.  So as not to be alone up there, I enlisted the aid of another participant who was a pianist, and one of the R.A.'s "Zul", whom I had taught to "steal" my cascade.  Our act was called "Piano with Juggling Accompaniment", and it went splendidly.  Except that I tried to do a bouncing glow ball routine in the dark without having rehearsed such.

My next big show was at a Talent Night at Pemberton Township High School.  I set it up in much the same way:  Calculus tutee/piano tutor Darcy Lemaire played piano and schoolyard chum Eric Hanebury helped with partner juggling.  I tried to do 5 but froze up.  Since then I've been schmoozing with college juggling clubs and rarely wound up doing a solo show.  Let's see...I did a Chicago homeless shelter show myself when the rest of JELLY bailed, the 2004 Christmas show at the Max-Planck Institute, Jed's wedding, and 40 tricks for Ralf Schmidt's 40th birthday.  You may or may not count a few lectures on Jugglology.  As far as I can remember, I managed to rope in some other performer(s) for each of my other shows.  My other hundreds of shows.  (My Hershey Park summer alone included hundreds.)  And this kind of makes sense, because my favorite kind of juggling is club-passing, which of course involves someone else.  And it's nice to have some company out there.  But my biggest show ever, here in India, was just me.

Every year at TIFR where I work, they have a talent/cultural night in honor of founder Homi Bhabha.  It's called Founder's Day, and there is singing, dancing, and theatre.  I was told about this and immediately figured I should do some juggling for it.  A few days before the show I improvised an audition in front of several important-seeming gentlemen whom I did not know.  Mostly because they felt like watching an extra juggling show.  Dear Diary I have to tell you that, weird as all this was, being on that auditorium stage reminded me of "home" more than anything else here in India.  Like a flashback to my high school theatre summers.

Anyway they set me up with a spot in the show, actually the opening performance.   I gradually got the idea that there would be a really big turnout for Founder's Day, and so I should earnestly rehearse and whatnot.  Remember my composer friend Caitlin? She kindly prepared the background music for me.  Half of it she did herself, as well as the transitions.  I won't tell you how awesome it was, because you can just watch the video yourself.  But let's just say that if there's a day in which I listen to the soundtrack, then that soundtrack will be playing in my head the whole day.  Today for instance.  I listened to it as I practiced for the show, and it inspired me to make my tricks measure up.

At the hour of the show I showed up backstage with my juggling equipment, yoga mat, and an apple.  I beamed at the gathering audience as I worked out the lighting with the tech crew, and Caitlin negotiated the music.  I ran around and found a suitable table to put my stuff on.  Many people I did not know shook my hand and wished me luck.  I wasn't really nervous; I tried not to wrap my head around it and just go with the flow.  If there were some blunders, it wouldn't be the first time.  I focused on how much I wanted to show people how cool juggling could be, and moreover some interesting Jugglology and JYoga in action.  Let's not think about rings rolling off the stage.

Waiting for my cue

You can see the next 13 1/2 minutes at this link.  (I can't upload it here because of copyright, but you should definitely watch it.)

The auditorium was completely packed with families of the scientists and staff who work here, an estimated thousand.  If you can't tell from the video, I'm happy to report that it went really well.  I did the tricks that I wanted to do, and most of the time I was not dropping.  One of my top juggling students, Shiv, makes an appearance, tossing me the third club.  In fact, I consider it my greatest solo show ever.  I stayed around for the rest of the show.  It was all in Hindi, except for this curious number:

During intermission a few kids ran over and sat next to me; I tried to be polite and chat with them a little.
The next day was fun.  As I went around campus doing my normal routine, lots of people came up to me to shake my hand and congratulate me on my performance.  I'm narcissistic enough that I never get enough of that.  Why don't you congratulate me in the comments?