When I look at Moschen (and my personal favorite, Greg Kennedy), I'm reminded of the history of visual art (painting in particular). There was a time when being a great painter meant being able to capture a scene or a moment with verisimilitude or with emotion, and a painter could make a healthy living (possibly not opulent or luxurious, but not necessarily starve-in-the-gutter poor) by capturing portraits for clients who could afford that kind of opulence. It took a particular refined set of skills to translate the world of sensory data coming in through the eye to paint on canvas.

The invention of photography basically gutted that kind of painting. People wonder why painting went to modernism and post-modernism; part of the story is that the entire skillset of "faithfully rendering the real" had been rendered economically obsolete by cameras, so an artist who didn't want to starve had to render something else. Similarly, it matters little how much discipline, effort, and grit it takes to perfect an on-stage juggling routine if the audience doesn't bother to come to the stage.

Moschen and Kennedy's style brings people something they know they've never seen before, even though they don't know juggling. It's postmodern juggling. ;)

BTW, if you remember the crystal ball contact juggling that David Bowie does in Labyrinth, that was Moschen.

An amazing video about his performance in Labyrinth, which he did WITHOUT LOOKING:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U8fTAHxjdo

I saw him perform a few years ago. It was off-putting: he spent a bunch of time during the show complaining about other people "stealing" his tricks, specifically contact juggling itself.

I was shocked to click on this article and realize that they were talking about someone other than Michael Moschen.

I believe Moschen is the only juggler to have won a MacArthur "genius grant"[0]

(He has also worked with David Bowie[1], which makes him not just a genius but a badass in my books, but I digress....)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Moschen

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_%28film%29

As an amateur juggler, Anthony Gatto is exactly who I expected this to be about. The article perfectly nails the tension of juggling: it's theoretically a performance art, but one in which there is almost no audience who can appreciate it.

I think it's akin to free jazz, or car shows, or other weird passions where eventually the experts can only be understood by other experts.

I did find it weird that they made no mention of Vova's sister Olga. Did she leave juggling?

I wonder if it's like when I take a look at software and all anyone else can see is the output, but I can appreciate the underlying mechanisms and even be awe struck. And my colleagues are wondering if we're looking at the same thing.

Ah - I do love a good contact juggling routine. I got to see this guy at the buskers festival in Christchurch NZ. They gave permission to reproduce one of their promo videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB_I2YILI2o

You might enjoy too :)

It's easy to underestimate the precision necessary for those bounce throws.

It's even easier to think juggling is about catching, while it is entirely about throwing.