Michael Moschen

From JuggleWiki

Michael Moschen is one of the most famous jugglers from the 20th century. He is personally responsible for the modern form of Contact Juggling using clear acrylic or "crystal" balls. Michael Moschen is also the inspiration for developing Bounce Juggling.

He was the original juggling partner of Penn Gilette, of later "Penn and Teller" fame, when Penn was Moschen's next-door neighbor and had taught Michael to juggle at age twelve.

Michael Moschen was a recipient of a MacArthur Genius grant, and from that period was featured in a documentary on the PBS television "Great Performances" series, producing a video In Motion With Michael Moschen aka Michael Moschen: In Motion still for sale. Much of that has been posted to YouTube.

He was also the hands of David Bowie in the movie Labyrinth whenever you see his character doing contact moves with a crystal ball.

Here is his official website home page.

Here is a brief biography, and another article from The Christian Science Monitor.

Here is a video of the original crystal ball contact juggling piece called Light, and the one-ball companion piece that every "cj-er" since then has tried to copy.

Here is a complete and good quality video of the Triangle bounce piece.

Here is a 37-min. workshop presentation in 2006, with a wide range of his creative juggling and manipulations, and some talk.

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