THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 9, 1997 TAG: 9701090027
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 112 lines
IT WAS a boring summer's day when Michael Moschen, his brother and a neighbor boy checked out a library book on juggling and began practicing with a vengeance.
Toss, toss, drop. Toss, toss, drop. In the quiet, little town of Greenfield, Mass., they worked at it like only kids can - for hours on end, with no interruptions from jobs, spouses or children.
Moschen, who performs Saturday at the Virginia Beach Pavilion, was 12 then. And the neighbor was Penn Jillette, who grew up to be the tall member of the comedic duo Penn & Teller.
For a recent Smithsonian magazine cover story on Moschen, Jillette told a reporter that his childhood pal has become ``the most significant juggler of the 20th century, and probably the most innovative in history.''
In Virginia Beach, in a two-hour show to be presented by the Tidewater Performing Arts Society, the 41-year-old Moschen will perform 20 to 25 pieces that should show his audience what the fuss is all about.
He'll make eight crystal balls float on his hands and traverse his body, like soap bubbles on tour. He'll bounce balls inside of a giant wooden triangle, creating complex percussive music through seemingly impossible moves - even while doing a kind of tap dance.
But describing the impact of Moschen's work isn't so easy. Imagine trying to put across the meaning of Keats' poetry or Leonardo da Vinci's art in a few glib phrases.
He dodges categorization as skillfully as he defies gravity. Moschen in motion is many things at once:
He's a dancer, performing choreography wherein props become his partners.
He's an inventor, experimenting with his props - from a 10-foot triangle to 3-inch crystal balls - until they suggest to him which way to go in developing a piece.
He's a poetic communicator, conveying stories, characters and content in his pieces.
Finally, he's a juggler whose explorations have retooled some of the field's basic techniques.
Whereas jugglers have always controlled objects by grabbing them with their hands, Moschen invented a way to manipulate objects with open hands, Smithsonian reported. This technique makes objects appear to move of their own will.
He can make a 1 1/2-pound crystal ball travel the length of his arm, then gently roll over his fingertip and travel his arm's other side. While this is happening - usually slowly and gracefully, rather than at the usual breakneck juggling pace - Moschen barely moves at all. Dressed in mime black, he keeps a deadpan face in an otherwise puckish demeanor.
Occasionally, the virtuosic movement artist will slip in an audience-including glance that breaks up the crowd, and shows he can mug and juggle at the same time.
Reviewers from major newspapers and national magazines sound awestruck by Moschen, and strain to describe the impact of what he does.
``I think it's about human discovery of the world through the use of imagination,'' wrote Dance magazine.
``In Mr. Moschen's hands,'' wrote The New York Times, ``juggling becomes a balletic art. . . the extraordinary beauty of his work is spell-binding.''
I like to make my own rules up,'' said Moschen, speaking from his home in rural Cornwall Bridge, Conn., where he lives with his wife, Danielle, and daughter, Isabella.
To reset the rules, you have to know them. And Moschen's performance career goes back to high school, when he and Jillette formed a group called the Toss-Ups that performed at nursing homes. After graduation, they became the Tumescos, working six shows a day at a New Jersey amusement park.
After Jillette found Teller, Moschen hooked up with Bob Berky for an acrobatic clown show, ``Foolsfire,'' that won them an Obie Award. They collaborated for a decade.
The credits kept rolling: He appeared in the films ``Hair'' and ``Annie'' and played David Bowie's hands in ``Labyrinth.'' He performed on stage at New York's Lincoln Center for its ``Serious Fun Festival.''
Meanwhile, in 1988, Moschen opened his first solo show at a very prestigious venue - Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival. His performance drew raves, leading to his PBS ``Great Performances'' special aired in 1988.
Working solo is how he found his true juggling self.
Alone in his studio, fiddling with props and inventing his own idiosyncratic means of research, including photographic studies a la Muybridge of objects in motion, he said, ``is what helped propel me down the path of tapping into my own experiences to make pieces that have meaning, not just skill.
``And that's what I'm known for - creating new techniques that have some mystery to them, some extreme something - complexity, or simplicity. Techniques that reveal something about life.
``That is what I have challenged myself to do.''
Though he might not have said it himself, he acknowledged an apt comparison with Leonardo da Vinci - the 16th century artist, pseudo-scientist and inventor.
In using a newly invented technique to raise the level of naturalism in his ``Mona Lisa,'' Leonardo da Vinci ``might have produced a clever piece of jugglery rather than a great work of art, had he not known exactly how far he could go,'' wrote Ernst Gombrich in ``The Story of Art.''
To this, Moschen can relate.
``Da Vinci was a master communicator about very rich and deep things. He had a great sense of humanity.''
As for himself, ``all I can say is I have definitely listened to my personal compass. And I've tried to not be scared away, to not be afraid of going after something I've never seen or experienced.''
Such an approach is not without its risks.
``Every show is a challenge. In every show, things could fall apart. You just live it. It's like life.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Wayne Sorce
In his performance art, master juggler Michael Moschen is a dancer,
an inventor and a poetic communicator.
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