I Just Read About That…

[ATTENDED: March 25, 2017] Water on Mars

I love finding family-friendly performers who do amazing things.  When I read about Water on Mars (their website is so spare–they need more publicity!), it sounded terrific:

Water on Mars is intense juggling for space stations! One hundred rings thrown, backflips landed, feet twisted, water flying through the air, 21 balls juggled and 15 pins spinning, all set to the pulsing rhythms of an electronic beat.The company is based in Stockholm, Sweden and consists of the three jugglers Wes Peden (USA), Tony Pezzo (USA), and Patrik Elmnert (SWE) who worked intensively for years to combine juggling with music and acrobatics—not to mention snow, chocolate, tap dance, and 400 rolls of tape!

So yes, this is a show of juggling.  But holy cow it is like nothing I have ever seen (I mean, look at the picture on the right).

It’s pretty much impossible for me to describe anything they did and make it sound as amazing as it was.

The three guys never spoke–they simply juggled–nonstop for an hour.  They juggled pins and balls and bags.  But man, the way they interacted with each other was terrific.

They opened the show with a piñata hanging down and colorful LED lights and stuff strewn about the stage.  And it began with one of the guys picking up pins with his feet and flipping them up to his hands while he juggled them.  And then he stuffed one pin in his armpit while he juggled the rest. And then he put another one in his other armpit, and then under his chin, and then in his mouth and then between his legs, all while picking up the next pin with his feet and juggling the remaining three pins.

And then the other two guys came out (one of them from a secret location–I’m unclear how long he was hiding there.

Over the course of the hour, they juggled pins–they had three separate colored and it was mesmerizing to watch the colors fly through the air both at the same time and asynchronously.  They would juggle around the bodies of each other–stealing pins from each other while in midair, throwing them to each other from across the room.  It was impossible to even know when to clap because they kept upping the spectacle.

They did a great routine with balls.  One of the guys had a giant see through tub and the other guy juggled inside and outside and over and under this tub–bouncing things off of it, sticking his head in it, jumping over it, standing in it and getting pushed, all while juggling.  It was, again, mesmerizing.  In the back the third guy was mixing things together.  It looked like he was making chocolate pudding but that never came to the stage.  He did however, make a drink of some kind which he shared with his compatriots.  Then when he drank it–in the slowest possible way–it was very strange but very funny at the same time.

Some other highlights.  At one point while two of them were doing different juggling apparatus, the other guy stood in the back doing jumping jacks–for literally five minutes.  That’s the kind of energy these guys have.  There was a hilarious call back to that later in the show when the tape gets involved.

Yes, they use the tape to tape each other up just to make it harder to juggle–the fact that they still can is even more impressive.  They also use the tape to secure the pins together, creating fascinating shapes.

And speaking of shapes, one of the coolest things about watching them perform is the patterns that they make in the air.  Half the time its impossible to even tell what they are doing because they are throwing the balls so fast–behind the back, to each other, under legs, behind the head, who knows–that you can’t focus on one ball. But watching them sail through the air in an endless pattern was just delightful.

They also did some great things with rings–juggling them obviously–but the way they were introduced was also great–rings flying everywhere.  There was also a non-juggling moment in which they threw rings over one of the guy’s head over and over in an amazing display of precision.

I was marveling at the precision that these guys have.  It’s one thing to do amazing juggling by yourself, but to be able to count on your other two jugglers to have consistency not only for themselves but also with each other is truly impressive.  As one guy stood on another guy’s back and that guy crawled away, the juggling continued and that meant they had to be precise with a moving target.

The piñata came to great use later in the show (so funny)–and that began the audience participation–as they flung the contents out to us.  Later, when they juggled toilet paper, they also threw the rolls out to us. Same with the bags of M&Ms (one landed right in front of us and I can’t believe I didn’t catch it.

And last but not least came the open water bottles, which they juggled and then threw out to the audience (with a little left in them).

As the show reached the end, the guys just had a ton of fun, juggling and when finished just throwing things everywhere–pins flying into the curtain, balls tossed all around the stage, rings bouncing everywhere.  They even wound up taking their shirts (and shoes) off and juggling them as well.  By the end it was utter wonderful chaos.

I have never seen anything like it and I want to everyone as strongly as possible to check them out if they come near you.  I know I’d go back without question if they came around again.

Their website isn’t great as I said, but you can see a bunch of clips of videos of their stuff here.  The clips don’t quite to it justice, but you get a pretty good sense of the cool things they do.