Wednesday, September 2, 2009

NBTS Picnic

Anna: It's been a long time since we've posted! Time to make up for it. ;-)

Today was our annual NBTS (Not Back To School) picnic at Emily Murphy Park. There were a lot of new faces this year, and it was a beautiful day for it, if a touch hot. We even had a cameraman from the CBC filming and doing a couple of interviews, though from what I've heard, very little of the footage made it onto the news.

This year, we were treated to some fantastic demonstrations by performer Brandon Tyson. He's available for performances and classes at brandontyson1@hotmail.com

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Between people in the shelter, where we had sustenance provided, and the playground, I'd say this is about half of the people who were actually there at the time. This group is watching the start of Brandon's demonstrations.

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He started off with contact juggling - the manipulation of acrylic balls with the body. I love the floating illusion here. Brandon had some volunteers from the group come up and try their hand and manipulating the balls under his instruction.

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Watching contact juggling is quite mesmerizing! The acrylic balls can actually get quite hot, acting like a magnifying glass. Brandon demonstrated on one of the picnic tables, which you can see in my flickr set.

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He also demonstrated with his practise poi. His performance ones can be lit on fire!

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Before he had to leave, Brandon brought his buugeng out for me so I could get some shots. The spinning blades produce fascinating fractals.

It was a great demonstration, and Brandon is a very entertaining performer!

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