firish jig
photo by mairead maheigan, 2009.
one evening a few months back, my friend pixie and i were talking about her idea of combining fire dancing with irish dancing. she had a strong background in irish dancing and wanted to explore combining her two passions; my only exposure being those lords of dance shows and my sister’s hysterical imitation. pixie and i had been wanting to work with eachother for some time and both liked the idea of doing a duet: her on staff and me on hoop. had a nice, gender balanced, non-traditionalism about it.
last night, after months of work, we performed the piece for the rest of our fire troupe as a sort of audition for the fire opera that we put on every year on the playa with salon soleil. (don’t worry, no opera is actually involved). while the central story of our firish dance is being told with hoop and staff, the group has grown to include fans, poi and a never-before-seen super-secret fire tool. definitely still a work in progress, but it was time to share.
the performance felt pretty good. i’m a perfectionist, by nature, and see much to work on, but i walked away happy. it’s funny, that’s the first time i’ve felt nervous spinning fire in front of my troupe in a long time. i think the underlying difficulty i’m facing is that i’m still finding myself mid-performance focusing a lot on the technical aspects of what we are doing, when i really want to step beyond that and spin deep into my flow. i know that will come with time and practice, but i’m impatient. i can’t wait to know instinctively where i need to be and what i need to be doing, to be able to synch myself into that vortex of flow that i think is inherent in any spin.
photo by mairead maheigan, 2009.
i find the piece challenging on two levels:
first of all, it is one of the more demanding hoop pieces i’ve choreographed so far. i’m pulling out a lot more stops in this one, stepping outside of my comfort zone. i hoop hard and fast near the beginning, do some close, intricate fire interactions, and end with a toss from the knees. (still don’t have that toss solid) endurance is an issue.
secondly, irish dance- an entirely new experience of physical and mental challenge. i have some relatively recent dance experience with tango, but really, hooping has been my main introduction to actually having some real body awareness in movement. i’m a bit of a klutz at heart. irish dance works me hard. i’m a panting, pool of sweat by the end of the routine.
trying to rock the hoop hard, doing often counterintuitive dance steps, while assembling an interesting fire dialogue between hoop and staff has been an arduous, but fun, adventure. pixie and her sister have been gracious in teaching me where my feet need to be when, and i’ve honored their time by practicing. i remember feeling super silly when i first started hooping. i only wanted to do it in private because i was so embarrassed at my complete lack of dexterity. felt like a spastic hippo most of the time. it has made me laugh having similar twinges while braving irish dance.
we’ve spent a couple of months in a studio choreographing and practicing before firing up. working in front of a large mirror with space and a loud sound system for a reasonable rate has been absolutely worth it. we would not be where we are now without having had the chance to work in the studio. it has been the perfect space to let the piece evolve in. with time available, i prefer to avoid the stress of figuring out each and every element of a routine from the outset. (the one exception to this is that i do like to commit to the music as early as possible. nice to have a solid, shared frame of reference.) i think it is a bit easier to find one’s flow when working on a piece that has benefitted from organic growth. you can develop things towards your strengths, identifying where you want to add an extra bit of challenge, and letting the muscle memory build over time. it has taken some faith to combat my impatient nature; i’ve had to reassure myself more than once that we would figure something out for this or that tricky part. unharried progress has been the reward for my patience. now that we’ve tried it lit up a few times, we have to make those additional adjustments to account for the reality of spinning with fire. polishing, polishing, polishing.
when i think of how far we’ve come on this piece, it makes me really appreciate pixie for having the initial vision and the passion to make it a reality. i’m really glad i jumped at the opportunity to try something new. regardless of how the playa performances go, this has been one of those afterschool special life lessons on the value of the process. that’s pretty cool.
i think it bodes well for things to come.
