It seems S-Staff’s first appearance was in the hands of Michael Moschen, who you can see performing with them here. After being inspired by Moschen, Dai Zaobab reinvented S-Staffs recently and gave them the name of Buugeng. Buugeng have since grown in popularity and Dai has been described as “changing the face of object manipulation”.

Buugeng are beautiful objects when stationary but when skilfully put into motion they create some mesmerising optical illusions. The curves seem to warp in and out of each other, circles are continuously waxing and waning. They can be serpents, wings or wheels, and when antispun or isolated the illusions become two-fold. This form of dynamic geometry can leave onlookers retrieving their jaws from the floor.

The patterns S-Staffs and Buugeng create for the observer are quite different to those created with double staff. But the basic patterns they are moved in by the performer are essentially the same as double staff patterns. Both have their basics rooted in figure 8 movements and the combinations thereof; forwards/reverse, in time/out of time etc.

There is a different technique to performing a figure 8 with Buugeng, though. There is an important emphasis on keeping the ‘S’ shape flat, a twist, or even a small deviation off plane, can shatter the illusion. Due to the difference in shape, twisting is not something double staffers need to worry about. (Though S-Staffs have definitely improved and neatened my double staff.)

Another element of Buugeng and S-Staffs that doesn’t apply to double staff is that by turning Buugeng 180° results in a different visual pattern and a different knack to creating that pattern. (See Dai demonstrate the above in this video)

Just like contact juggling, hoop manipulation and body popping, both Buugeng and double staff manipulation require precision and immense object control to produce their illusory effects. Because the weight of S-Staffs isn’t evenly distributed as with a (straight) staff, I find achieving this precision more difficult with S-Staffs. The fact you can change the orientation of Buugeng exacerbates the difficulty.

Buugeng/S-Staffs are beautiful things both for the audience and the performer. They are as valuable as any other form of object manipulation. My one worry is that they will be seen as a bit of a gimmick, riding on the back of double staff – the shape of them responsible for the effect, not the skill of the performer. I don’t think this is the right view but by continuing to grow and by developing techniques and moves that are Buugeng/S-Staff specific (not just double staff moves done with a different object) the cynics can be silenced.

Disqualified & Overqualified

Disqualified is the 90-minute biographical part of the package. It is essentially and interview with Annetta Lucero mixed in with extended, and no-so-extended footage, from training and competition throughout her career.

The impression of Annetta I had taken from the trailer for the DVD wasn’t particularly favourable so my expectations of the biography weren’t high. Watching the film, though, Annetta quickly grew on me. The account Annetta gives of her younger years spent training with her baton for hours and hours a-day is an interesting one. It is not a sad story of a lost childhood as Annetta clearly fell in love with baton twirling and had a huge appetite for success from an early age.  Her childhood, though, was certainly unusual, and one quite alien to the rest of us.

The interview takes us through Annetta’s various successes and disqualifications in national and international baton twirling competitions. All the while there seems to a creative urge in Annetta that is not allowed to express itself fully in the baton twirling world. This urge eventually leads to Annetta to a successful career in the circus.

By tracing the course of Annetta’s career the film highlights some of the differences between a sport and an art, without ever explicitly pointing them out. In the circus and object manipulation realms many of the techniques and skills of baton twirling are being manifested in the form of staff manipulation. The circus culture places a larger value of creativity and expression than in sporting circles and this seems to have been what attracted Annetta to the circus. Whether the makers of the film intended this contrast between circus and sport, I’m not sure. But the implicit discussion of that contrast was the most fascinating and valuable thing I took away from Disqualified.

The footage used in Disqualified is generally of a fairly poor picture quality due to of some of it being 30 years old. However, this by no means diminishes the impressiveness of the routines and skills displayed in it. Annetta’s level of skill is, I suspect, why most people will be interested in buying this DVD. As a staff-spinner myself, it was certainly the tutorial section that whet my appetite.

Overqualified is more specifically a baton twirling tutorial DVD than a staff spinning. It has been marketed towards the fire spinning audience though, and rightly so. It brings a new perspective to staff manipulation. Personally, some bits I would leave to the baton twirlers, but there is a lot staff spinners will find inspiring and educational. The section on body work, for example, explains different movements the performer can make whilst spinning or twirling a baton/staff. These movements (spins, pirouettes and moves like illusions) are rarely seen in the fire performance world and it would be great to see more of it. Others are definitely too “baton” for my staff spinner’s mindset.

Overqualified has something for every level and style of baton/staff spinning; beginner to world-class; fast spinning, throws and contact. It is, however a bit jumbled. Each section does vaguely start at the easier end and work up but not necessarily in steady increments. The staff spinning section for example (though why the moves contained therein are specifically staff moves, I don’t know), starts off with very basic moves such as the thumb flip but quickly progresses to quite advanced doubles’ moves like the double layout and a flat throw/long arm roll (a.k.a. angel roll) combo.

If you’re looking for contact staff tutorials, don’t be surprised when you can’t find any in the Contact Series section – what you’re looking for is under the heading of Rolls. The Rolls section is fantastic but don’t panic when you see the beginner series – it’s not easy! This section has given me stuff to work on that will keep me going for months but it is not explained in much detail. A good understanding and ability in contact staff is necessary to get the most out of this section. The élite part of Rolls contains the best tutorials. Unlike the preceding parts, the élite section deals with individual moves and combos, not series (extended combinations/small routines), and are more fully described.

Like Annetta herself, Disqualified & Overqualified is an interesting and eccentric DVD. The production quality is good and the DVD is generally well put together. Disqualified is certainly worth a watch but it is the tutorials that most grab my attention. Some may find the lack of detailed explanation in the tutorials frustrating but Overqualified has a lot to offer. Any serious (or not-so-serious) staff or baton spinner will benefit from it. Annetta does make it all look very easy though. So to avoid being disheartened always remember the vast number of hours Annetta has spent practicing and that she is a multiple world title winner. That should put things back into perspective.

So, object manipulation is sort of like juggling and other circus arts, but it’s also different to them. The guys at www.ministryofmanipulation.com (MoM) say, “Object Manipulation is part of Modern Juggling. If we use a loose definition of Manipulation, then all Juggling is a type of Object Manipulation. Alternatively if we take a loose definition of Juggling, then Manipulation is a type of Juggling.”

I’ve been to many juggling conventions and circus festivals and seen how and when people apply the term “manipulation”. From these experiences I can understand the difficulty MoM had in giving it a precise definition of object manipulation. Exactly what differentiates manipulation from juggling is not immediately, or completely, obvious.

Let’s go for quite strict definitions of juggling and object manipulation, so that some disciplines are both juggling and object manipulation, but many are either just juggling or just manipulation. In a Venn diagram, the two circles would overlap in the middle with most of their areas outside of each other. With these definitions something like hoop isolations would be considered object manipulation but not juggling, for example.

So what would such a definition of object manipulation look like? Why would body rolling a single acrylic ball be manipulation, but not juggling?

To me, object manipulation seems to fall into two broad categories; ‘contact’ disciplines that control the prop with the body using rolling, rotation and balance, and; those that create illusions – often by means of isolations, geometrical patterns and mime. Body rolling in contact juggling, contact staff and some meteor would fall into the contact bracket, to give some examples. Hoop isolations, much multiball contact juggling and body popping would be in the second group.

Body popping is an interesting art form; it’s both dance and manipulation. However, it seems like no object is being manipulated. But perhaps the body popper is using her body as an object. Or, more precisely, using different points on her body as objects and moving the rest of her body around those points, or those points around her body. This type of movement creates the illusion of bonelessness or of invisible forces running through the body.

It seems to me that the partnership and balance of moving an object around your body and moving your body around an object is a hallmark of object manipulation. This intimate relationship between body and object might be a central part of the definition of manipulation. The illusions of isolationist contact juggling and ‘magnetism’ of double staff/baton when spun in antispin patterns, are all created by moving around the object, or moving the object around, in precise ways – often geometrical. The same is more obviously true of the contact category of manipulation with perhaps less focus on geometry.

The link between internal martial arts such as Tai Chi and manipulation has been made before, and I think it holds true. The internal martial arts teach their students to make use of, channel and manipulate both the energies of themselves and their opponents to their own advantage. The same is true of manipulators.

When controlling a staff as it rolls down one arm, rotates around the neck and up the other arm (a half-Steve), the manipulator is creating space for the staff to roll into, following the path of the staff’s energy and positioning pivot points to get the staff to behave as the manipulator wishes. A contact juggler isolating a two-ball palm spin is moving his hand along the path of one of the balls and creating space in his palm for the balls to move into.

So, maybe a definition of object manipulation might include the delicate dance, balance and interdependence between the object and body, but also the utilisation of internal principles in that object/body relationship.

But is this enough to differentiate forms of object manipulation from forms of juggling? Can the same internal methods and object/body relationship be seen at work in a juggler? Perhaps I’m barking up the wrong tree? You tell me…