The Flying Karamazov Brothers

Boston Herald

Lifestyle Wednesday November 24, 1999

Juggling at the Speed of Sound

MIT lab gives Karamazov Brothers music to juggle by.

By STEPHANIE SCHOROW Seattle Times theater critic

Deep in the depths of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, freaks and geeks are in a mind meld.

Four long-haired neo-vaudevillians are tossing ideas - and balls and an occasional club - back and forth with the technonauts of MlT's Media Lab.

"If the speed of the juggle is the pitch, that's easy for us to do. That's easy for you to control," Neil Gershenfeld, associate professor of media arts and sciences, is saying in his excited, on-the-verge-of-being-out-ofbreath manner. "Is that a way to play music?"

In response, Paul Magid, one-fourth of the famed Flying Karamzov Brothers, starts to toss three balls in unison; MIT graduate student Benjamin Vigoda starts humming to the movement, remarking, "There's a whole group theory for that."

If anyone is an expert on juggling, it's the four performers mulling Gershenfeld's words. For 23 years, the Flying Karamazov Brothers have juggled comedy, theater and showmanship as easily as clubs, balls, hoops and the occasional fish.

And if anyone is an expert on turning technology into fun (and profit) it's the digerati of the Media Lab.

Since spring the digits and the jugglers have been working to create a new form of entertainment, weaving high-tech wizardry with low-tech gamesmanship. Those who have caught the act of the Flying Karamazov Brothers (they recently performed at Symphony Hall) know their show is much more than keeping balls in the air. There's music, there's drumming, there are death-defying feats (death by humiliation, that is). Most of all, there's shtick. The jokes fly as fast as the airborne objects.

At the Media Lab, it's no different.

Graced with a laconic wit, Howard Patterson (dubbed Ivan Karamazov onstage) describes how a mutual friend brought the Karamazovs and the Media Lab together last spring. The troupe came to Cambridge with a list of ideas such as three-dimensional juggling holograms and anti-gravity machines: "If we could turn off the gravity in the theater, it'd be great for juggling," Patterson said.

But seriously, folks. The West Coast-based Karamazovs, which include Magid (Dmitri) Mark Ettinger (Alexei) and Roderick Kimball (Pavel) have long considered music and rhythm an integral part of their show. Indeed, they have built their own radio-triggered sound system that lets them play Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" by bopping their heads with clubs while juggling.

They hoped the MIT brains blend music and visual effects with their wacky brand of showmanship for a new production, "L'Universe," which debuts in January.

What they got was a no-idea-is-too-weird-for-us effort, under the direction of Gershenfeld, and long hours by graduate assistants Vigoda, Bernd Schoner, and Mat Reynolds (who once "worked 70 hours straight; they finally peeled him off the computer," Patterson remarked). Mira Wilczek and Kelly Dobson also helped out.

The students devised "sonar transducers" (to be sewn into vaguely comic leather hats) which, simply explained, signal a juggler's position to a computer. Software uses this information to trigger notes and pitch. The lab also adapted electronic devices called accelerometers for placement in clubs or on the jugglers' wrists. These accelerometers measure changes in movement and can be used to change pitch, volume or speed.

The devices work together, Vigoda explained, much like two hands on a guitar; one hand presses the strings to create notes, the other hand strikes the chords. Composer Doug Weiselman is now writing g music that will be "played" by the jugglers' movements.

The collaboration got a dry-run at an MIT conference last month, revealing a few glitches. A more polished product is a side-splitting "virtual juggling" segment in which computerized objects are "juggled" on a huge screen by the jugglers' shadows. The pixels of the computerized objects react to the shadows with the kind of precision and unpredictability of real objects.

A single powerful computer produces this effect. "We couldn't have had a virtual juggling system last year without a roomful of computers:' Vigoda noted. "Next year, it'll be a lap top."

But such virtual juggling is not, strictly speaking, a special effect. As Magid put it, there's "No finger syncing" The jugglers realIy have to work to place the virtual balls correctly. Likewise, the accelerometer can't guarantee perfect notes.

The chance to make a mistake is, amazingly, important to the troupe.

"The ethos of the group is to make a very transparent and real-time experience," said Ettinger. The new technology will "enhance the extension of the juggling, not to replace the experience of objects, that, at any moment could fall or collide. You miss a club, the club clatters to the floor. The consequence of a missed step in juggling is akin to missing a step in dancing."

"We have to play a wrong note to be able to play a right note."

Surprisingly, the 40- and 30-something performers have found much in common with the 20- something technocrats.

"We're learning physics and they're learning to juggle," Ettinger said. "We like to work with people who have a sense of humor," said Vigoda "You're talking about us?" Magid said.

Of course, the lab is thinking beyond the stage to wider applications. Picture Fed Ex precisely tracking its delivery folks, or Dominos delivering pizza to a student moving around a campus.

As for the Karamazovs, the collaboration has given "us a sense of unlimited possibilities," Patterson said. "We like to show off," Kimball added.