1. Didgeridoo: As students are getting seated I play an ancient Australian wind instrument called the Didgeridoo. I later demonstrate how Aboriginal tribes used this instrument in storytelling as a way to preserve their history and culture before the creation of a written language.
2. Music & Movement: Students listen to two pieces of music, one from Senegal, the other from Acadia. The students are asked to watch the influence this music has on the choreography and emotional quality of two distinctly different juggling routines.
3. Gestures: To demonstrate how body language and facial expressions can be powerful tools for communication, a student is invited onstage and in a matter of minutes is taught a difficult juggling stunt, all without the use of words. At the conclusion of this routine the audience as a whole is taught how to applaud, laugh, and say ‘Thank You’ in American Sign Language.
4. En Español: A student is invited onstage to participate in an interactive illusion presented almost entirely in Spanish. This routine demonstrates the importance of learning foreign languages, and also explores techniques for overcoming language barriers (e.g., repetition, non-verbal cues, rephrasing, visual associations…).
5. News: In a poetic routine exploring the research and script writing process behind this very show, a newspaper is folded, twisted, torn, and then magically restored. This routine illustrates how written languages enable us to explore the world around us and preserve our ever expanding human knowledge, culture, and history.
6. Hot Postage: During a routine on the US Postal Service, randomly selected students are asked trivia questions relating to an envelope they are holding in their hand. They must examine the envelope carefully to locate the answers, and then relate those answers back to the audience.
7. A. G. Bell: After dealing with an unruly, and hysterically funny, telemarketer, a piece of solid matter magically travels down a thin wire connecting two tin cans. This routine visually illustrates how telephones convert sound vibrations, produced by the vocal cords, into an electrical signal, and then back into sound.
8. Tuning In: In the final routine of the show students learn that the technology created to make the telephone possible paved the way for the invention of the radio. They also learn that the radio changed the world by delivering information faster, and to a broader spectrum of society, than previous forms of media. And then, after I search the dial to find appropriate musical accompaniment, my huge 1930’s radio vanishes in mid-air.
