about

i started to juggle when i was 12 years old and from the first moment i was possessed.
 the next years i juggled daily for many hours and it was out of question that i would not become a professional juggler. my juggling in the beginning was very technical, but after some years i started to incorporate my body. somehow the juggling gave me the reason to move (dance).
in 1996 i stopped juggling and started my university-studies in philosophy and german literature.
after six years of study i began to understand that
too much thinking stopped me from „hearing the birds“. this understanding brought me back to juggling and i decided to take another step towards making it to my profession.
immediately after this decision i got engaged as a juggling teacher in almost every european circus-school. this suited my research style because i did not like to perform. the only thing i wanted to do was improvise in my room and take dance-classes. in this time i developed through my own juggling and through the reflections concerning the teaching the system of „organic juggling“.

what is „organic juggling“?

trying to get in symbiosis with the objects. it’s not about dictating my will to the objects - it’s about following the objects. the focus is more on the body and not only on the air-architecture created in the outside. the objects affect the body and vice versa. looking for places to throw/catch which are deforming the body and using this deformation for future movements and throws. playing with strange rhythms and contradictions. breaking the fragility which is inherent in classical juggling. deleting the concept of „dropping“. the body of the juggler needs to be soft and permeable and has to go (in improvisations) in unknown territories. using partner juggling (jamming) as a research tool, where you are required to listen to your partner and simultaneously be open to the outside.


through this period of experimentation i finally came closer to the stage and i was more able to perform my personal way of juggling. i was entering the world of circus. trying to do the split between an artistic approach while also pleasing the traditional bookers (the audience was never the problem). this was an important time because i learned to perform, but after some years i could not continue. it became like an „assembly-line work“. i felt something was missing.


after this important experience in the world of classical circus, i started to look for different projects in which the time of presentation is not limited to 7 minutes nor where the only goal is to entertain the people with „aaahs“ and „ooohs“ or laughter. i worked as a performer in several new circus projects like „aiuaio“ (which was laureated in „jeunes talents cirque“ 2009), „circus quantenschaum“ by the bremer shakespeare company, „little big world“ by sebastiano toma.
all these projects made me think much more about choreographic and dramaturgical skills. also my juggling changed - it was no longer enough to simply feel the flow and be almost magically at one with the objects, something more wanted to be expressed. there was a shift from „organic juggling“ to „existential juggling“.


what is „existential juggling“?

the main question is: we are moving, but what is moving us? this kind of approach works with pictures, words, subtexts, emotions, atmospheres and by letting them work inside us, we are moved by them. it’s about using the skill as a metaphor to communicate something. therefore the use of the objects become more existential, because everything we do refers to something else.
taking the perspective from the objects (patterns) - we have to think about the metaphorical value of each pattern/sequence. taking the perspective of our body - we have to think about the metaphorical value of our rmovements. taking the perspective of our relation to the objects - we have to think about the metaphorical value of our relation to the objects.
quintessence: there is something inside us, which wants to come to light - how can we go as deep and honest inside to explore the "something" and how are we able to visualize it for the outside.