Distillations - A Juggling Performance by Luther Bangert

DISTILLATIONS takes the audience on a multimedia and multidimensional journey through the anatomy of a moment, investigating causality, and emerging into the ground state of the juggling universe. By highlighting segments within the juggling process that are often only a means to an end - the suspense of a peaked throw, an object at rest, a dropped object, and the moving human body above, below, and through it all, we are invited to explore the realms between inner and outer, and wonder at the transformations inherent there.

In addition to the originality of the juggling performance, Distillations features projected video that is intertwined and parallel to the live performance, providing an extra perspective and tactility to the juggling and movement, and allowing for further questioning and understanding of the presentation. With a mixture of vivid and surreal imagery, the video puts a lens onto the performance itself and investigates it from both the macrocosm and microcosm, taking the audience into the infinitude of the juggling process. In each new place it is performed, Distillations creates a new relationship in how it interacts with and activates the environment, through the projection of the video onto the space, and the projection of the throws around it.

Biography:

Luther Bangert is an American artist currently based in Philadelphia, USA. For Luther, juggling is a dance and means to paint the body and sky with the paintbrushes of throws and catches, while exploring relationships between body and object both physically and philosophically. He performs both technically and fantastically, drawing on his movement experience, fusing the patterns of juggling with organic movement to embody fresh expression and depth.

Luther has performed with the Great Bombay Circus in India, has a degree in philosophy, holds a Guinness World Record for “Most Things Juggled Whilst Sword Swallowing”, and has performed in twenty countries across four continents in the last nine years. He is continually exploring new work and currently teaches juggling at the Circadium School of Contemporary Circus in Philadelphia. Distillations was born in the summer of 2021 through Luther Bangert’s investigations into juggling and movement patterns that stretched, swelled, and compressed time. This led to conversations on how to expand these ideas into a full length show with the sound, multimedia, and dance artists who ultimately collaborated throughout the whole process. Assisted by two local grants, Distillations was developed over the course of a year and premiered in May of 2022.