Luminous Edge

Created by Thomas Arthur. Music by Paul Ely Smith. At the Vancouver East Cultural Centre on Thursday, April 24. No remaining performances

I think it’s safe to say that you will never see a more personally revealing juggling show.

Near the beginning of Luminous Edge, Thomas Arthur tells the audience, “When I was an 11-year-old, my brain was all over the place.” He was scattered and, it seems, anxious. Then one night he saw Johnny Carson juggling on TV. He deciphered the pattern of movements Carson was using and by morning young Thomas had taught himself to juggle. For the first time, he experienced what he calls the “bliss of order”. To Arthur, juggling is a blessing. He figures that without it, he might have suffered the same fate as his grandfather, who spent most of his life in an asylum.

He bills Luminous Edge as a conversation between the two sides of his personality. The first to emerge was the controlled and controlling Wizard, who is totally obsessed with patterns of the kind you find in the cool complexities of physics. The Wizard juggles metal things. The Shaman, who has come along more recently, also delights in patterns, but is more organic and easygoing. He’s into the rhythms of nature, the visual music that you find on the surfaces of rocks and trees. He juggles sticks.

Am I making it sound like Arthur is a hippie freak? Well, he kind of is. At times, he talks in little squeaks and buzzes, much like one of my favourite kids, and sometimes his body moves as if mysterious energy is running through it. But I really liked the guy. He is without guile. And how many people do you know who are willing to make themselves this vulnerable?

Besides, he’s a tremendous juggler. He twirls corkscrew-shaped pieces of metal and twisty bits of wood in ways that make it look like the wave patterns they create should be endless. At one point, he tosses juggling balls into a large, clear plastic cylinder. Just before they go flying out the other end, they reverse direction and come spitting back out at him. He grabs them and keeps juggling. The cylinder stuff is delightful; it feels like some fundamental principle of nature is revealing itself.

Arthur includes films he’s made that reveal the rhythmic qualities in everything from staccato bursts of sunlight on water to syncopated flights of birds. These films are trippy—and speedy. I started to long for a more settled rhythm, both for Arthur and for myself.

I also wanted him to get some company on-stage. His obsessive world is clearly isolating. Just as I thought this, he invited my nine-year-old friend Ailish to join him. They were a perfect combo, playful and gentle.

I wanted more peace and more interaction in this show, and maybe that’s the direction Arthur is moving in. In the meantime, his fascinations—and his skinless honesty—yield a great deal of pleasure.