"BALANCE MASTER" MAEDIR EUGSTER BUILDS AN INCREDIBLE HAND-HELD PIECE ONE PALM FROND AT A TIME.
I’ve happened across enough contact juggling videos on YouTube to know that souped-up circus routines are a dime a dozen on the Internet. But Balance, a short film directed by Tobias Hutzler, is the first I’ve been able to watch without laughing.
Balance stars Maedir Eugster, the 58-year-old "balance master” and co-founder/director of Rigolo Swiss Nouveau Cirque, a performance art troupe based in Switzerland.
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Eugster, clad only in pantaloons (and maybe some eyeliner for effect?) spends the video building a temporary sculpture, based on a single feather. Using 15 bare palm frond spines, he balances each proceeding object on the tip of the next, until he’s holding a massive kinetic sculpture overhead. Like any good performer, he kicks it up a notch for the finale by balancing the entire form on the tip of an upright frond.
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Then, thanks to physics, the whole thing collapses without Eugster’s steady hand. It’s like watching a Calder mobile blow apart in the wind.
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COMMENTARY: This guy makes this appear very simple to do, but it requires a steady hand, an understanding of physics, geometry and kinetic energy, and a very steady hand, and a whole lot of patience. The kinetic structure looks like it could come down at any time. It's very intense. You can tell by the look in his face. This guy is thinking one step ahead, making sure that the next piece he places on the structure is in perfect symetry and baalance -- nouveau art form at its very best.
Courtesy of an article dated April 23, 2013 appearing in Fast Company Design
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