THOUGHTS WHILE JUGGLING

It took time, but juggling has been a major influence in teaching me how to accept the mistakes I make in life and to recognize the qualities that makes a human beautiful.

Juggling in general has shaped my life into what I have always dreamed it could be; a creative professional artist, bringing my juggling art to people. That is why my greatest inspiration lies in honoring juggling through my work, drawing inspiration from its fragility and endless possibilities.

I didn’t find juggling, juggling found me. I hadn’t even considered it until 2,5 years ago, when I came from a theatre background to a circus school in Finland. I fell in love. I wanted to try all the different aspects of juggling – that is how I also ventured into foot juggling.

From the moment I picked up the balls, it has been an endless rollercoaster of emotions, successes, and failures. I have dedicated the past years of my life to the creative world of juggling. Now, as a professional juggler after less than three years, all the work has been rewarded.

However, I have always been a juggler at heart – I just picked up the balls later in life. All the creative and artistic work I began as a child has shaped the way I approach juggling today.

The difficulties definitely lie in the psychological side of juggling. Nerves affect the body, and they affect every throw. Failing on stage – especially in juggling – is so visible. As someone who is already very sensitive, it has been difficult to deal with the psychological side of this discipline. To not tie my own worth to that failure. 

Because juggling plays such a big part in my life, at times I have truly felt heartbroken with it. In these moments, I like to remind myself that in my juggling I combine, among other things, expressive acting, movement, music, and contact with the audience – and together, all of these form juggling art.

Art cannot be valued or measured. Art is not based on a technical performance. A drop is part of that art just as much as the throwing itself. The fragility that juggling represents has been one of my greatest sources of inspiration. By dropping, I bring the most beautiful part of juggling onto the stage – its fragility.

I want to represent a new way of juggling and of thinking about it as a form of art. That means I speak openly about dropping as a part of that art and create juggling where the goal is not the technique itself, but a means of expression. Juggling expands the boundaries of art  – it can combine all artistic elements together and present a human being at their most bare.