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Plate Manipulation

The internet's first guide to manipulating and juggling plates

Click here to go straight to the tricks.

This section of the site was inspired by a thread on rec.juggling in June 2004. Finally, in April 2006 we've got the time, the footage and the website all together in the same place to show it to the world! Thanks very much to Andy Vass, bspeers, Rhys Thomas for their contributions, and most of all It's Him for the video footage.

As far as we know the only other information published anywhere on the art of plate manipulation is in Reginald W Bacon's "The Juggler's Manual of Manipulative Miscellania" (Published by Variety Arts Press, US Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 84-50557). Try the vendors page if you want to track a copy down.

The art of manipulating plates has a long history; the gentleman jugglers of the 18th and 19th centuries often did waiter and restaurant routines using plates, perhaps most famous of which were the Price Brothers with their sketch "An Evening at Maxim's". Michael Kara (born 1867) was possibly the greatest plate juggler, throwing one plate high out of a juggling cascade and then rolling one across the chest while the other was rolled across the shoulders. Enrico Rastelli (1896-1931) reportedly juggled 8 plates while balancing a pole on his head. 19th Century composer JA Janke was even inspired to write the "Blitz Plate Waltz" after seeing a performance by Senor Blitz.

The tricks discussed here will not cover toss juggling or spinning plates on sticks as those skills are well covered elsewhere on the internet (try The Internet Juggling Database and the Juggling Information Service as good starting points). Here we will concentrate on the flipping, twisting, rolling and throwing of plates to explore the effect that prop can create.

If you don't have any plates first follow this link to find out what makes a good plate for manipulation.

Once you've got your props you'll need to know what to do with them. Click here for the plate manipulation tricks.

Written By: Mike - 2004-06-15 13:03:57
Last Edited by: LP - 2006-04-18 16:57:11
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