An unbelievable dance of the bouncing balls

Juggler Stijn Grupping has been throwing bouncing balls for more than 20 years, against walls, tables and chairs, even robots. The balls bounce self-possessed through space, forming a play of lines that is sometimes elegant and rhythmic, sometimes complex and vigorous. Only to end – if all goes well – in the juggler’s hands again.

In Ballroom we pass through exactly that most elementary of the discipline of juggling: Stijn throws the balls and then catches them. What if the balls are allowed to draw their own choreography? How will they move through space? From a to b, or rather the other way around? Faster or slower, sideways or in a cha cha cha? Do they colour outside the expected lines?

Ballroom plays in a truck, where a small audience is seated together with the juggler. Through juggling and magic, they discover how the trajectories of bouncing balls are cut up and shaken in time and space, and presented again in their own reality. Musicians Jochem Baelus and Frederik Meulyzer create a world of sound, using everything that’s free or fixed in the concrete room as their thrilling instrument.

©Geert Goiris