Mark Nizer sounds like a really cool guy.
And I don’t say that just because he’s a fellow Mac addict.
And it’s not just because his juggling/comedy show that he’ll bring to the Beach/Schmidt Performing Arts Center on Oct. 21 is full of cool tech that he’s built and programmed himself.
He also seems to have his head — and heart — in the right place.
Nizer has won awards including first place in the International Juggling Championships, Collegiate Entertainer of the Year and Comedy Entertainer of the Year, and has taken his one-man show around the world, including performances at The Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts. Oh, and a special performance for the O.J. Simpson jury.
His drive was inspired, he said, by the death of his father when Mark was 12. His father, he said, was struggling with his career and feeling like he had not followed his dream.
“Now that I look back on it,” he said, noting he has a degree in psychology, “it really made me want to do something that I really wanted to do and not just settle for a job just because others expected me to do it. It gave me the bravery to go for it.
“I think the trauma of a parent’s death removes the fear of failure from someone because they’ve experienced the worst thing that could happen.”
An early traumatic experience is something he said he’s noticed is common among performers.
“They’ve had something that made them re-evaluate what’s scary. It’s so rare when you see a performer who puts it all on stage who hasn’t had some sort of event where its forced them to take risk,” he said.
He’s passing on some of that drive to kids in his Charlottesville, Va., home who have had similar experiences with a free juggling club that meets each week. Three of students won medals at the world championships, he said. And he’s amazed by their skills.
“I would love to take credit for it. Certainly I did help them get started and get them into it, and I’m sort of a tough coach, but now they’re showing up every week and kicking my butt,” he said. “They have skills that I am completely trying to catch up on. That’s a great feeling.”
One thing he can take full credit for is his show. He said he’s something of an inventor and creates the effects and technology used in his show himself. He controls the music, video and most of the lighting through a Bluetooth device on his belt and an Apple Macintosh during the show.
His current tour features 3D effects that the audience can see with the aid of special glasses, which will be available for $1 at Beach/Schmidt.
The inspiration for that came from some of his earlier dabblings with the technology.
Several years ago, a new 3D method was developed for print advertising, and, Nizer said, he was one of the first to use it in a brochure.
With the economy going downhill, Nizer said, he knew he needed to come up with “something crazy” for his tour.
“I thought back to that old print job I did and I was, like, man there’s no reason it can’t be live,” he said.
“So I thought about it a little bit, came up with new material and there it is: 3D live performance.”
And he keeps working on brining technology to the show in new ways. He wants to bring in text voting so audience members can not only vote on which trick they’d like to see him do, but see the results in real-time on a video screen. He’s also got a live video feed that could show the audience his point of view.
After three decades of performing, it can be difficult to keep the act fresh, he said.
“Just the technical juggling part, you could spend a lifetime trying to be good and improve at that alone,” he said.
“But then to come up wiht new ideas, I have to literally sit down at my desk and say ‘OK, I’m going to be creative now and come up with an idea.’
“A lot of times my best ideas are the second ideas,” he said. “The first idea is like a cool concept, but just isn’t what I’d hoped. And that’s what I’m looking for is the next idea.”
