Unlike normal juggling, in which objects are thrown, spun, or balanced, in contact juggling, as its name implies, objects remain in contact with the body. The standard object used is a transparent ball, which is usually plastic,but has the look of a magical crystal ball. There are endless variations, and there is no throwing or catching, so the effect is extremely graceful. It tends to have different effects on different watchers - some people are indifferent, while others simply cannot tear their eyes away. The clear balls pick up light from the surroundings, so if there are brightly colored lights nearby, the balls will twinkle and flash as they move.
Contact juggling is, above all, graceful and absorbing.
While manipulating these clear balls is the most common form of contact juggling, it is not the only one. Any manipulation that keeps an object in contact with the body is contact juggling. CJ with clear balls has been around for at least ten years, but my observations suggest that it has only begun moving from incredibly obscure to moderately obscure over the past few years. At my college , for example, no one else had heard of CJ when I got there in 1994, but by 1997 several arriving students were practitioners of the art. During one of the musical numbers, David Bowie performs, or rather, appears to perform, some feats of contact juggling.