When not performing, Keith Michael Johnson, Rhode Island's Bubble Guy, is experimenting and stretching the limits of what bubbles can do and what people can learn from them.
Describing Keith takes more than one short phrase. One has to use words such as artist, entertainer, scientist, researcher, teacher -- the list could go on and on. One of his specialties is presenting core academic subjects in a theatrical, humorous, and enthusiastic way.
Keith describes his work with bubbles as "a passion to use these spherical wonders--from tiny, intricate geometric sculptures to VW Beetle-sized behemoths that lumber through the air like dinosaurs--to stir the minds and imaginations of audiences." He adds, "The art of soap bubbling lies in its capacity to dramatically illustrate the transformation of the mundane into the extraordinary."
Keith has developed a huge site that can tell you everything you've ever wanted to know about bubbles, bubble performers, and all things bubble-related. Check it out at SoapBubbler.com.
He includes a huge history area that will give you tons of information about bubbles over the past 100+ years. He says, "I was really taken with all that bubblers were up to between 1885 & 1925. Much of what they were doing back then has been forgotten. I'd like to bring it back and keep it alive, in my own way. I mean, a 'bubble social' as a small group fund-raising event sounds like a fun time! Or bubble parties for kids with contests and bubble games.
"They had an enthusiasm for playfully testing the limits of bubble's abilities back then, which I found contagious and have tried to carry into my show."
His bubble show was the first in America to be created with funding support from state and federal arts endowment sources, including the National Endowment for the Arts and the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts. The show includes bubble domes, lighter than air gasses, home- made bubble devices and inventions, and secret solutions that make bubbles live the entire length of the show.
Keith starts his shows with "You know, I get to talk with a lot of kids, and when I ask them what they want to be when they grow up ~ no one ever says Bubble Artist. Well, I'd like to change that. In fact, that's what this show's all about..."
Casey Carle BubbleMania
Casey Carle starting bubbling professionally in 1987 while performing for Ringling Bros Circus. After running away FROM the circus, Casey expanded his bubble skills into a solo act that is a full-time occupation. His "BubbleMania!" stage show is presented in two formats: "Comedy with a Drip!" for family audiences and theaters and "Science, Art & Comedy!" for schools, science centers, and educational events.
Humor, both verbal and physical, is a big part of Casey's performance style. It's this spontaneity and off-the-cuff comedy that keeps the show fresh for him and up to 400 audiences a year.
A great performer, Casey mixes science, art, and humor in his shows. He has performed on TV, at the Smithsonian Institution, and he won an international bubblers competition in Japan in 2005.
Among his other activities, he was recently selected by Cirque du Soleil as their soap bubble consultant, coach, and technician.
Casey developed and, with Jim Moskowitz, wrote a great science book for kids, Bubbleology: A Hands-On Science Kit. The book is integrated with a kit that includes all the needed equipment and instructions for 30 bubble experiments. He kindly donated a copy of the book/kit to the Bubble Blower Museum.
You can find out more information about this wonderful book in the Books about Bubbles section of this website
Sterling Johnson The Bubblesmith
The only performer who specializes in blowing bubbles using only his hands, Sterling Johnson was trained as an engineer and a lawyer. His bubble blowing to entertain friends over 30 years ago has developed into a full stage show.
Sterling is the only person to ever put a bubble inside a bubble inside a bubble on stage without any straws or tubes, and the first person to walk completely through a bubble film. He explains it this way, "When a hand is soapy, you can slide it right into a bubble because the bubbles respond as if your hand is part of them. I had a fantasy of getting entirely soapy and walking into or out of a vey large bubble. We tried it at the second and third Exploratorium Bubble Festivals in the 1980s. I stripped down to my bathing suit and bathing cap, was drenched with detergent, and Richard Faverty waved huge bubbles over me as I attempted to walk out through the film. Although the bubble often popped just as my last foot was coming out, I got credit for having succeeded by the end."
His favorite bubble story comes from when he was volunteering at a school for severely retarded children when he was in engineering school. He says, "There was an autistic girl who gave very little reaction to anything going on around her. I made some half-sphere bubbles on a soapy formica table top for some of the kids, letting those who were able to play with the bubbles I had made. All of a sudden, the girl's eyes seemed clearer, and she became engaged with the igloo-like bubbles that were in front of her. She played with the them, touched them, and was interested in their popping. Her teacher said it was the only time that had ever happened. It was pretty touching to be present for that."
Sterling has appeared in Smithsonian and Omni magazines, and is a featured artist in Klutz's The Unbelievable Bubble Book.
Tom Noddy Bubble Magic
Tom Noddy is a long-time bubble blower. He appeared on television's That's Incredible and the Johnny Carson Show in the early 1980s, and soon was performing throughout Europe, Japan, South America, and Australia.
Tom was doing a show in Berlin when he found out about BubbleBlowers.com and sent some information and pictures to be included in the human bubble blowers section. This is what he said:
"When I was a kid, I don't remember that I liked bubbles any more than all of the other kids did. But, I do remember one warm summer day while I stood with a smiling aunt whom I adored as I blew and truely noted the action of one long blow as bubbles thumped off of the end of the wand ... so many bubbles from one blow! That memory mixes my heart's response to the love of my aunt, the warmth of the sun and the site of the gorgeous bubbles.
"Many years later when I was in my 20s, I spent time fooling around with bubbles, having no idea that I was about to launch a career as a bubble blower."
Tom wrote one of the classics of bubble blowing, Tom Noddy's Bubble Magic. He kindly donated a copy of the hard-to-find book to the Bubble Blower Museum.
You can find out more information about this wonderful book in the Books about Bubbles section.
Alice Plasterer Stickler the professor's daughter
Alice Stickler is carrying on the family bubbling tradition of her father, Eiffel Plasterer, who could be called the father of bubble performing in the United States.
Eiffel, who was known as "Professor Bubbles" and the "Bubble Wizard," taught high school physics and chemistry in Huntington, Indiana, and developed his bubble show from those interests. He gave 1,500 performances for schools, community groups, science center bubble festivals, and on the television shows Late Night with David Lettermann, You Asked for It, Real People, the Dick Cavett Show, and The Tomorrow Show. He died in 1989.
Alice assisted her father in his performances for years and, after his death, decided to carry on the tradition. She continues to perform her "Fun with Bubbles" shows in Indiana, including one of her father's favorite tricks, that is, making a bubble "climb" a wire, appearing to defy gravity.
Louis Pearl The Amazing Bubble Man
BubbleBlowers.com meets the Amazing Bubble Man
Louis Pearl performed at the Mall of America in Minneapolis on March 17, 2002, the first day of National Bubble Week.
His performance was not only the first bubble show I've ever seen, but I also got to find out what it is like to be in a bubble.
Felix Cartagena The Bubble Guy
"The Bubble Guy," a.k.a. Felix Cartagena, is a bubble entertainer, inventor, kite flier, and extraordinary volunteer. He does not call himself a performer, preferring to say that the bubbles themselves are the performance. And these performances have taken place in Delaware, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, the District of Columbia, and recently Colorado.
Above, one of the many children enjoying Felix's bubbles at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
Felix started developing bubble machines to help identify wind directions and speed for kite flying. He was presented with the Honorary Order of the Kite Award by the Maryland Kite Society, and is also known for pioneering the use of a flexible, transparent plastic material to create his Stained Glass Kite.
Felix has freely shared the plans for a number of bubble machines with others. His "Ephemeral Sculpture Machine" bubble machine (at right) was displayed at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, where he also taught a class called Gizmo-ology 101: Inventing, Bubbles, and Inventing Bubbles.
The Delaware News Journal called him the "Pied Bubbler of Delaware," recognizing his years of taking his bubble inventions to entertain at parks, festivals, charity walks, concerts, fairs, and other community gatherings without ever accepting payment. As he explains, it is "not a business ... just a lifestyle."
Some fans who had moved to Colorado recently honored Felix by starting a website for him, and supporting a public event called Bubbles over Colorado, which was held May 7-9, 2004, at the Blue Skies Inn in Manitou Springs, Colorado. We're hoping this will become an annual event.
Felix was also selected as one of the "58 fascinating people" featured in the book Friends, Neighbors and Folks Down the Road by Ed Okonowicz and Jerry Rhodes.
Kelly O'Neill Big Bubble Magic
Big bubbles are Kelly'specialty -- and "big," he says, "means from the size of one to ten medium sized automobiles." He's great at it, and he also is one of those wonderful people who share information. He says, "I give my 'secrets' of bubbling away as I want to help people experience and spread the magic and joys of big bubbling to every corner of the planet and beyond." Kelly's website, Big Bubble Magic, is filled with wonderful tidbits of knowledge he's learned through experience.
You will find bubble solution recipes at his site, information about blowing bubbles at night, how to make big -- really, really big -- bubbles, the effects on bubbles of different kinds of weather, bubble wands, and materials to use.
Harry Gambardella Connecticut's Bubble Party Guy
An entertainer for 20 years, Harry Gambardella added bubbles to his shows about three years ago, and he's been developing runs HG Entertainment in Connecticut, and among other adventures, provides entertainment for children's parties. The show includes music, games, and dancing, and of course bubbles are the highlight.
Harry has been working on the skills and solutions appropriate for his venue, and adding bigger bubbles to the shows. He loves bubbles for their beauty and ability to return people to "simpler times." Most rewarding are the looks in people's eyes as they see bubbles float by, and the fun children have trying to pop them.
Meriden Connecticut's Octoberfest 2005 provided Harry with his biggest challenge to date when he was invited to perform for thousands of people.
Dentinho Brazil's Magic Clown
Bruno Maddalena, known as Clown Dentinho, is an Italian man who has been living in Brazil since 1990, and performing since 2000.
His act includes magic and balloon sculpture, but he says that one of his best performances involves "working and funning with giant soap bubbles."
Get more information about Dentinho on his website.
Although the website is only available in Italian, his giant bubble pictures and bubble gallery are understandable in every language
Brinum-X Latvia's Bubble Opera
Clown Carillon Italian Bubbles and Mime
Paul Casanova is Clown Carillon, "the clown without words."
Through bubbles and mime, he feels, he communicates both poetry and emotions.
In addition to bubbles, he uses music, marionettes, and puppets in his shows.
Get more information about Clown Carillon on his website.
Although the website is only available in Italian, his photo gallery has a lot of wonderful shots
哈哈哈哈 O(∩_∩)O哈哈~ 好久不来了，不小心看了一眼自己主页，发现自动关联了自己以往发过的帖，点进这个看了一眼，笑个半死。。。敢情我当初还发过这么搞笑的东西啊，我自己完全不记得了 
雷达卡
发表于 2007-2-13 20:04:05
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发表于 2007-2-14 04:58:08