Contact Juggler Stares at Crystal Ball for Six Hours, Claims He's 'Performing'

A contact juggler has been standing motionless in the middle of Pioneer Courthouse Square in Portland for approximately six hours, holding a single acrylic sphere at chest height and staring at it without blinking, in what he describes as 'a durational exploration of the relationship between juggler and prop.' The performer, who identifies himself as Zenith, placed the 100-millimeter crystal ball on the back of his right hand at 11:14 AM and has not visibly moved it since. 'Contact juggling is about the conversation between body and sphere,' Zenith said, speaking without moving his lips in a way that several passersby found unsettling. 'Right now, the sphere and I are listening to each other. When it's ready to move, it will move.' A small crowd has gathered and dispersed several times throughout the day. Reactions have been varied. 'Is he... doing something?' asked tourist Mark Edgeworth, who watched for fifteen minutes. 'I keep waiting for the ball to roll across his arms or something. It's just sitting there. He's just standing there. Is this art?' 'This is definitely art,' countered another onlooker, a graduate student in performance studies. 'He's deconstructing the audience's expectation of movement. The ball is the still point around which our impatience orbits.' Zenith's tip jar, positioned at his feet, contains $4, a metro pass, and a note reading 'move the ball please.' At approximately 4:30 PM, Zenith performed a single slow isolation — rolling the ball from the back of his hand to his palm over the course of ninety seconds — prompting an audible gasp from the three remaining spectators. 'See?' he said. 'Worth the wait.'