UPSB v3
General Discussion / The Live Performance of Pen Spinning
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Date: Mon, Nov 3 2008 10:28:37
While at the circus I was performing a medley juggling routine during which I juggled scarves, clubs (sometimes), rings, balls and did ball spinning, doing perhaps 30-50 seconds with each prop. In a routine such as this, there is definately scope for throwing in 30 seconds (or perhaps a little more) of pen spinning. However, I found that it was quite problematic to show pen spinning in such a way that would be pleasing to the audience. I spent quite sometime thinking about what could be done to make it interesting for an audience and came up with these thoughts:
The pen would have to be very very visible - You would either have to use a very visible pen (not necassarily bright, but very easily seen) under the full light settings. Another option might be to use 'blackout' and to use a glowing pen (anyone made a pen yet that glows along its whole length quite brightly? That would be an awesome thing to have).
You would have to use something other than just your hands - The pen would have to be manipulated by the entire body. The audiences interest would be held for very little time if you just stuck to using one hand (or even both hands). You would also need to move your body a lot too, rather than standing still there with the pen, or at least be moving around constantly while doing the spinning. The audience would probably go for some of the stuff we have seen in live tournaments, such as spinning for a short time behind one's back. Magic would also be very nice to incorperate.
You would have to let the pen go into the air, probably a few times - The higher, the better and the more extreme the catch looks, the better. The audience may appreciate something such as a blind behind the back catch (assuming you were not using blackout lighting).
You would have to stop sometimes - Sometimes you have to stop and raise your hands and take your applause. The audience won't be happy if you stand and spin constantly for 60 seconds. If however, you stop 3 times and take applause from them, they will appreciate you lots more.
Anyone else got any thoughts on this?
Lastly, it would be very good if some of you, if you are interested, would try to make a routine suitable for live performance (to a non-spinning audience), after what you have read here. I would be very interested with what you came up with! Perhaps we could make this art more interesting for the average-Joe and make it even more popular. Perhaps one day even, it can be performed live on stage! -
Date: Mon, Nov 3 2008 13:24:56
the problem IMO is that a pen is too small, not visible enough in front of a large audience. you would need cameras
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Date: Mon, Nov 3 2008 14:01:45
Yeah, I have the same issue as Zombo... something as small as a pen won't grab much attention imo no matter how much you juggle it with your entire body. If you could take penspinning concepts/tricks and use it on a 2 foot long stick.... that'll grab muchh more attention, even if you do much simpler/easier stuff with it.
Penspinning was meant to be done primarily in classrooms and thus be very discrete.... To take something that was meant to be fairly discrete (compared to the other things that people would do in front of an audience like yoyoing, breakdancing, juggling, etc... <--stuff you can't do in class and get away with it as easily) ...... and then try to make it attention grabbing aka, the opposite of discrete, well... err, good luck with that =\
I don't feel that penspinning can be a large scale performance sport just because of the nature of how short the pen must be.... cause really, ~20 cm... I dont' think an audience can pay attention to something that's shorter than a ruler going around your body. Penspinning can really only shown to a larger audience if the larger audience consists of other penspinners, otherwise, the audience would get much too bored.
I've watched some yoyoing videos, and I've got bored of watching them after like a minute.... and that's a highly active form of juggling... now, if I knew nothing about penspinning, and was asked to watch someone penspin with their entire body...... yeah, i'd be extremelyyy bored... -
Date: Mon, Nov 3 2008 16:21:31
Maybe not a pen but a rod that light's up maybe? Like start out in complete darkness and have it light up (I know you already mentioned this but it is a viable option). This is probably where your trick where it rolls down the backside of you arms and neck would work. Think less penspinning more baton spinning.
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Date: Fri, Nov 7 2008 16:06:22
=/
i dont think it is very possible (at least not to get average-Joe interested) because
- pen is too small
- PSing gets repetative and boring
- when you throw it in the air a lot and manipulate pen with whole your body it starts to look more like juggling or something, and less than spinnin -
Date: Mon, Nov 10 2008 00:07:33
Well, I think that stage performance is a bit difficult with PS. Because in order to be visible, you would need something much larger. But if your pen is too large, it no longer looks like a pen, and the tricks you can do with it will also change. You would end up with something more along the lines of baton twirling or staff manipulation.
In order to use PS in performances, I believe you really need to stick with close-up performances, where a group of people are standing around you, and you perform PS for them. I've done demos like this for Spinz at trade shows, and it can work out nicely (too bad I wasn't prepared enough so I just freestyled...no routine >_< ).
For close-up performances to work well, though...you need to have user interaction of some sort. You can't just stand there and spin for minutes without saying anything. It's just too awkward. I didn't really do a lot when I was demoing, but it was because I had to answer questions about PS, promote Spinz, etc.
I'm guessing a good close-up show could work if you plan on having viewers participate in some form.
Then to bring that to larger audiences, you just need to have a stage where you bring a small group of volunteers, then have a camera with a big display for the rest of the audience to watch. Just think Close-up magic. Much like they do with cards. -
Date: Tue, Nov 11 2008 03:56:04
Moving the whole body + blackout + glowing pen sounds like glowsticking to me. I know there are differences between PS and glowsticking. I think glowsticking would capture your audience's attention, but pen spinning sounds a bit difficult to do in front of an audience because of the visibility problems mentioned.