Greg Kennedy practices in the cone. (Christina Ritchie Rogers/DavidsonNews.net)

By CHRISTINA RITCHIE ROGERS
DavidsonNews.net

CONCORD – Anyone who has seen a Cirque du Soleil show at some point wonders, “How do they do that?” “Totem” cast member and former engineer Greg Kennedy knows the physics behind the fantastic.

Greg Kennedy juggles as "The Scientist" in "Totem."

“I’m an ex-engineer who’s an obsessive compulsive and an atheist,” he said, “and what role do I get to play? A Darwin-like scientist. It’s perfect.”

In the show, under the big tent on the Charlotte Motor Speedway grounds in Concord through March 27, Mr. Kennedy draws on his engineering knowledge to delight the audience with his “extreme juggling” routines. He dons a gray beard and conducts physics experiments with his monkey lab assistant. At one point in the show, he juggles lighted balls resembling atoms while inside a large, transparent cone.

ENGINEERING AN ACT

“At some point while I was in college, I realized that juggling doesn’t have to be just a throw and a catch,” Mr. Kennedy said. “It can be, for example, a roll and a bounce.”

Mr. Kennedy, now 40, studied engineering at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Despite his heavy workload, he would stay up nights juggling, and using his knowledge of physics to enhance his juggling styles. Shortly after school, he decided to leave his engineering job and focus on his true passion: his craft.

The cone in “Totem” is actually a near replica of one Mr. Kennedy made years ago for his own act during his pre-Cirque juggling career. It is large enough for him to stand inside. Once inside, he throws balls around the fluted walls, catching and re-throwing as they spin around him, not unlike marbles spinning around a sink drain but never going down.

After joining the “Totem” cast, Mr. Kennedy worked with the show’s artistic director to adapt the look of his original cone and make it resemble something that might be found in a science lab, so as to fit with the show’s theme. They also had to redesign the balls, which proved to be quite a challenge, as each ball is wired with 96 red, 96 blue and 96 green LED lights. The balls had to support the lighting but still be a size and weight he could work with, Mr. Kennedy explained.

HOW DID HE GET HERE?

Mr. Kennedy’s route to Cirque du Soleil was “unconventional,” he said. After he left his career in engineering to become a professional juggler in 1997, he picked up gigs wherever he could, at small venues or even on the sidewalk in Atlantic City. He later “paid his dues” performing on cruise ships, he said, and at one point submitted an audition tape to Cirque but did not hear from them for almost a decade.

He had forgotten about Cirque, he said, when he received a call from “Totem”’s artistic director in 2009.

PUTTING FAMILY FIRST

The decision to join the cast was not an easy one, Mr. Kennedy said, until he learned that his family could travel with him.

“That was a big deal-maker for me,” he said. It meant he didn’t have to worry about juggling career and family, and could focus on, well, juggling.

While here in Concord, he and his wife Shana are staying in a three-bedroom apartment near the Speedway with their son, Sebastian, 8, and daughters Ayla, 6, and Isa, 4. Sebastian and Ayla attend school on site, but their learning extends beyond the walls of the classroom trailer. With the show, the children have traveled to Montreal, Quebec, Amsterdam and London, all within the last two years.

“They’re having a blast,” he said. “It’s one of the best choices we could have made for our children.” In all, the cast and staff of “Totem” travel with 18 children, and have four babies on the way.

With so much travel, the Kennedys still call Philadelphia home. They own a house there and own the Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, which has about 400 students. While traveling, they rent out their house and Mrs. Kennedy remains in close contact with staff at the circus school, managing operations as best she can from afar.

THE ART (AND SCIENCE) OF PRACTICE

Mr Kennedy may know the physics behind tricks, but even with the backing of scientific rules and predictability of motion, mistakes happen.

Greg Kennedy climbs into the cone Tuesday afternoon, March 8, for a practice session. Click here to watch a short video of his practice.

“To be able to do a good job you need to have a healthy sense of nervousness,” Mr. Kennedy said. It’s that sense of nervousness that keeps him practicing. And practicing. And practicing.

Like a scientist conducting research experiments, Mr. Kennedy keeps detailed records of the results of his juggling throws. He does each throw pattern 100 times, and notes his success rate on a spreadsheet. If any column on the sheet has a number less than 100 percent, he does that pattern 200 more times, and so on, until he scores 100 percent across the board.

“I juggle because I don’t have a choice,” Mr. Kennedy said. Like many artists, he feels a need to do his craft. But it’s not all for him – he also does it for the audience.

“I like people to say, ‘I should have seen that coming but I didn’t,’” Mr. Kennedy said. “It’s physics, not a magic trick, but it’s unexpected.”

WANT TO GO?

Totem runs through March 27 under the blue-and-yellow big top near Charlotte Motor Speedway. Ticket information is available at http://www.cirquedusoleil.com/totem

To read a review of “Totem” by CorneliusNews.net Web Manager and Design Director Lyndsay Kibiloski: “‘Totem’ is a treat for the eye and the imagination” (March 4, 2011)

For more information about Greg Kennedy, visit his website