Showstopper?
Brother's graduation throws premier diabolo duo a curve
Just as the red diabolo shot skyward above Faneuil Hall Marketplace on Monday and the onlookers craned their necks to follow it, Nate Sharpe made the announcement.
"The Sharpe Brothers," he yelled, proudly, as he launched more of the juggling props, which resemble giant yo-yos, toward his younger brother, Jacob. "We're the only people in the world to perform five diabolo . . ." Before he could finish the sentence, he knew it was going wrong. The sun was blinding Jacob's eyes, and the wind was carrying the diabolos wide.
What started under control ended with the brothers scrambling wildly to keep their "death zone," as they call it, from expanding over the audience and clunking someone on the head.
"Look us up on YouTube," Nate said to the crowd as he dove to his knees to catch the last one, "if you don't believe us."
The Sharpe Brothers are in transition. It was their third-ever street show, and what has worked well onstage - they're the reigning teams champions of the International Jugglers' Association's world championships - was proving tricky outdoors in the elements. But moving their act to the street is not the only great flux in their lives at the moment.
With 21-year-old Nate graduating from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Friday and heading off to Europe for graduate school, the circus world is wondering what will happen to one of the premier teams in the history of the diabolo. They are academic stars - Jacob, 19, is finishing his sophomore year at MIT - with opportunities galore outside juggling, but they are caught by their love of performing, and the circus world's love for them.
By day, the Canton natives are typical overachievers. Nate, who was a pole vaulter on MIT's track team, has earned a prestigious Marshall Scholarship to study engineering for sustainable development at the University of Cambridge in England. Jacob, a physics and electrical engineering major and a member of the college gymnastics team, will follow his brother and do his junior year abroad in the other Cambridge.
But it is what the Sharpe Brothers do in their spare time that has made them a big name in the world of circus and juggling. Diabolo (pronounced dee-A-bo-lo) has been enjoying a boom in popularity among jugglers over the last decade. Based on a centuries-old Chinese toy, a diabolo is manipulated on a string that is attached to hand-held sticks.
The Sharpes got into the circus arts through their father, Jim, who recently retired as the owner of an aluminum extrusion company. Jim had learned to juggle in graduate school. When his boys were young they would pick a new prop for him every year, and he would learn tricks to perform at their birthday parties.
Jim would also take them to see Circus Smirkus, the Vermont-based youth circus and summer camp, and the boys fell in love. Every summer from middle school through high school, they would attend the camps and, later, travel on the company's big touring show.
It was at Circus Smirkus that they got hooked on diabolo, and at an opportune time; its modern renaissance was leading to breakthroughs in technique, and the Internet facilitated immediate sharing.
"They came in when the prop was blowing up and everyone was throwing new stuff into the pot to make a richer stew," said Matt Hall, a well known juggler and diabolist from California. "It's like a musical instrument. [The Sharpes] learned the basic notes, then started playing and free-styling, except they were playing notes no one had ever thought of doing."
The brothers, who practice in the MIT athletic center and are a familiar sight around campus, say that while their hobby might seem odd elsewhere, it is hard to stand out on a campus where most everyone is up to something unique. Their classmates, they say, are just as likely to ask them what they're doing as they are to begin a discussion on rotational forces.
"We've found that it's way easier to teach someone diabolo if they understand physics and mechanics," Nate said.
There is, the Sharpes smilingly acknowledge, something so MIT about becoming world class at a toy or game.
Nate will graduate with Jason Katz-Brown, who has been the No. 1-ranked Scrabble player in North America and has memorized every word in the dictionary. Juggling, which tends to attract people with math and science backgrounds, has a long history at the university. The MIT Juggling Club, founded in 1975, is the oldest "drop-in" juggling club in continuous existence.
Fritz Grobe, a diabolo pioneer who helped train the brothers at Circus Smirkus, said it is the MIT influence - that innate understanding of math and physics - that has helped the Sharpes to advance so rapidly.
"With diabolo, it's a constant flow of very subtle adjustments, and they have a kinetic sense that allows them to understand the movement," according to Grobe, best known as half of EepyBird, a duo who turned the geyser created by adding Mentos to Diet Coke into performance art.
"I could say, 'There's a trick I thought of 10 years ago that just seemed absurdly difficult, why don't you try it?' And five minutes later they'd come back and say 'What's next?' " said Grobe, who won the International Jugglers' Association individuals gold in 1993 in a routine where he did two diabolos on one string for a finale. Jacob Sharpe can now do four, and the Sharpes have passed seven on video, believed to be the most in history.
Where they go next is uncertain. Nate is focused on pursuing a career in engineering. Jacob, who is the better diaboloist (he got started a bit earlier and spends more time practicing) has stronger leanings toward performing; he's more of a natural ham, and is considered to be at the tippety-top of technical skills.
They plan to continue street-performing at Faneuil Hall until late summer and hope to shoot another video, then hit festivals in Italy and Norway as they make their way to England.
Their street act, they acknowledge, is a work in progress. Because of final exams, they couldn't start writing it until two days before the premiere. But so far, they've played to what they know - an older brother trying to control his wild younger brother.
Nate plays the straight man, and Jacob the goofball in suspenders. As they finished their fourth performance at Faneuil Hall, the Sharpe Brothers showed that they were quickly learning the rules of the street - fewer tricks, more jokes. They finished by passing three diabolo - which was much more successful than the earlier attempt at five - and then Jacob delivered the money plea.
"Kids," he told the crowd, "if your parents don't give you any money to give to the funny jugglers, it's because they don't love you." And then, as has happened before, Nate whacked him straight. 