Ville Walo is a pioneer, innovator and reformer of contemporary juggling, who in his work explores new juggling techniques and physical and spatial movement in juggling.
In developing his own style he has found inspiration in the tap dancing of old musicals, particularly of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and in the experimental art movements of the beginning of 20th century: futurism, bauhaus and Russian modernism. In his performances he wants to combine dance-like body movement and juggling so that they form an incorporated union. He aims at developing new juggling technique, not just new ways of working the old tricks into a new performance. In his work he both uses new kinds of objects and finds new ways of using the traditional juggling props like clubs, balls and cigar boxes. He works with the geometric shapes of the objects and tries to find the right kind of movement for each object, as if the object itself would come to life. Through this he wants to give a meaning to the juggling performance and make juggling stronger as an independent art form.
Walo has expanded the expression range of juggling towards visual theatre and object theatre. Walo is artistic director of Festival of New Juggling as well as Cirko Festival of New Circus in Helsinki.
Besides this group and solo work, he has been working together with Jérôme Thomas Company. His most important pieces of work so far have been the solo performance Waloville in 2002 and Odotustila (2003) and Katoamispiste (2004) and Keskusteluja (2006)together with Kalle Hakkarainen. The Arts Council of Finland gave Walo a 5-year artist grant starting from 2006.
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