photo by rob prideaux, 2011.

check out this shot by rob prideaux. we’ve got a great photo project in the works.  stay tuned…

it was great having the opportunity to do consecutive shows; i kept joking that it was like being a member of the cast of cats, or something, seeing everyone doing the same pre-show prep each night.  my personal performance improved as my nerves relaxed a bit as both the venue and the timing of the show became more familiar.

as i’ve mentioned before, this new firish piece is a bit different from the last piece.  this is much lighter, more playful.  we were going for a dream fire fairie ethic.  the piece is not technically challenging for me as a hooper; the challenge comes from the simultaneous dancing and from the fanwork i decided to take on.  we subsequently adapted it for fire, but at the time we agreed to just focus on the flow firish-style (increasing our dancing skill and tool manipulation within the piece).  as to the elf speed reference in the title, we call a section of our piece where we dance in a circle ‘elf speed’.  it just kind of developed, like all great section-naming does.

in the last section of the routine, krista and i drop our respective tools (double staves and hoop, respectively) and pick up a pair of fans.  we then dance in complementary unison as part of the tableau of movement that completes the piece.  i’m a total novice with fans.  my abilities are at the complete nadir of my abilities with the hoop.  this was my first performance with them.  one surprising obstacle during all of the performances was that my hands kept getting super dry; i kept floundering my vertical spins because the fans kept sticking to my hands.  nevertheless, my big victory was managing to smile for most of my performances, which is something i’m trying to work on.

photo by devon athey, 2011.

several hours before the final performance on sunday evening, i threw caution to the wind and joined my crazy peeps in spinning at the how weird street faire.  if you are not familiar with it, how weird is an outdoor festival in the south of market (soma) area of san francisco.  huge streets are closed off: thousands of people mingle and dance their way around multiple stages and vendors.  the crowd is prone to dress with some level of outrageousness, hence the name.

i dressed the part in my silver ilaniowear pants- by far the most rockstar pants i own.   as you can see in the link, the crotch of these pants is fronted with black lacing.  after absolutely kicking ass on hoop for several hours in the bright sunshine, admittedly a bit woozy from dehydration, i found myself having to keep pulling up my pants.  they often require some level of readjustment- i’ve worn out the inherent stretch in the waist from years of dancing in them.   so, thinking they were just slipping a bit, i adjusted them quickly without looking and kept moving.  i ignored it until it became incessant.  i finally broke from my hoop reverie to see that the lacing had finally snapped, leaving me with a kind of gaping underwear crotch show with which i’d been semi-flashing the audience for awhile.  granted that’s super-mild for the how weird crowd, but i suddenly felt a bit shy, made some quick adjustments, and left for the gig.

anyway, i’m happy with the way the performances went.  we had some errors, but i think the performances were good.  we got a lot of positive feedback and, as always, seemed to offer something different from what other spinners were doing.  it is really fun to work with a group of this size and specialization.  a couple of years later and i’m happy that firish is still working its magic.  when pixie and i started the thing we had no idea where it would go.  now, it’s a separate but complimentary performing troupe to solar flare.

in the next installment, i’ll talk about solar flare’s quest for conclave…

photo by claire mulkey, 2011.

in an earlier post, i was stressing about the string of big performances on the immediate horizon, venting my mounting, inner freak-out, as it were.  a few months later and those shows are a distant, happy memory, as are several others.  instead of assaulting you with an overlong post trying to cram all of my activities in, i’ve decided to break it up into bite-size pieces.  this is the first one.  open wide…

the temple of poi fire dancing expo at the end of april was awesome.  there were lots of great performances by talented peeps.  the space is great: a big open-air concrete stage at union square, surrounded by large buildings and the buzz of the city.  it was a little on the cold side, but fortunately the rain stopped early enough in the day to make the show possible.  this was my second year performing as part of the event.  once again i felt honored to be there.

one super-cool experience prior to the performance was getting my arms and shoulders airbrushed.  an artist friend of bene’s spent a nice chunk of time giving us each complimentary layers and textures.  the results were cyberpunk cool.  unfortunately, a good portion of it rubbed off onto the inside of the jacket i had to wear to keep warm while awaiting my performance time.  regardless, i definitely am going to invest in airbrush work again.  it was a fun process, looked amazing, and helped me get into character on some level.  the icing on the cake was my friend sarah giving me some facepaint just before we went on.  i usually avoid having any makeup on my face. i sweat like a pig and it invariably gets smeared.  but, she did a great job of adding a bit of unobtrusive artistry to my face and it lasted without any problems.

the focus of the night for me, of course, was my duet with bene.  after several months of prep, i feel pretty good about the debut performance.  the energy was high, the crowd was with us, and we were pretty on (though a little nervous at the beginning).  given all the work that went into the piece, it’s not surprising that i’ve put the first video through the super-harsh critique sieve.  but, even with that battering, i feel happy with the performance and am really proud of our effort.

i’ve enjoyed the process of creating the piece with bene.  she is willing to work hard, brings an insightful, creative mind to the choreography, and has a great sense of humor.  over the last few years, i’ve been very fortunate to work with a number of really talented people.  what i have learned from them is immeasurable.  the more i co-create duets, the more i recognize that the most important decision is who you work with.

photo by fototaker tony, 2011.

reviewing the video, i think we had some great sequences, with some tight timing.  i like the complexity and pacing of the piece a lot.  there’s definitely stuff to work on, but that’s always the case.  as i’ve mentioned before, i add new tricks into routines so i can learn them.  as such, still working on some skill development and fine tuning.

there is a part of the routine where we do synchronized, horizontal, wrist spins.  it’s a cool trick, but i’m definitely still working on executing it consistently.   it’s one of my drop-risk moves.  the truth is i wasn’t confident going into the performance that i could pull off the move without a drop, having dropped it a number of times in practice.  in the move, while holding the hoop with my outstretched hand, i sweep my right arm clockwise on the vertical plane, opening my hand at the top (12 o’clock) to spin the hoop on my upright palm like a top, as both descend in an outward, clockwise arc.  it will be super cool when i can get it solid.

unfortunately, my wrist was pretty sore that night due to all of the fan practice i’d been doing for the separate firish piece i’ll talk about later.  i ended up having to adjust the move to protect my wrist and prevent the drop.  i basically did a cheat of the move, faking the spin of the hoop by twisting my wrist instead.  i’m glad it doesn’t look too bad in the video, but it’s on the top of my list of bits to work on.

photo by fototaker tony, 2011.

in other near tragedies, my hoop went out before the end of my routine, as feared.  fortunately it was at the tail end.  it’s almost a good thing it went out when it did, since i ended up doing a freak-ninja-bungle-of-a-move; a new move i had solid in practice but floundered at the crucial moment, for no known reason.  but, whatever.  it’s cool that a wick relit at the very end.

i’m still trying to find a firehoop that meets all of my requirements: light enough that it doesn’t kill me, strong enough that it can repeatedly take the torque i put on it, and wick’d-enough that it can last a good 4-minute set.  if i can’t find that hoop, i’m starting to realize that I may have to make that hoop.

anyway, the last thing i see watching the video is that i definitely need to ramp up my energy level to match bene’s glowing presence.  she owns it from the outset- i need to be there, too.   a friend once told me that as soon i realized and owned how awesome i was, my performances would be unbelievable.  or something to that effect.  it is something i struggle with.  i have this inward battle against arrogance that is sometimes at odds with projecting confidence in my performances.  it’s when i see examples of great showmanship that i’m inspired to try anew to let the full kahuna out.

regardless of improvements to be done to the routine and our delivery, i’m grateful that it went well and for the top-notch performance opportunity.  i look forward to continuing to refine and polish the duet.  after several intervening performances, i’m already feeling much more relaxed with it.  i feel like i’m starting to open up with it, if that makes any sense.  i look forward to bene and i both consistently finding that balance between being at ease in the familiarity of the fluid motion of the routine and executing each sequence with powerful intention, taking it from a primarily technical performance to an artistic performance of nuance, emotion, and polished skill.  i’m excited to see what it becomes.  glad the debut was a hit.  it was a nice way to start off.

in the next installment, i’ll talk about elf speed and the unexpected junk show.  stay tuned…

photo by fototaker tony, 2010.

2010 started with a great hoop path class.  thus inspired, i began several months of working on a groundbreaking hoop/poi duet with glittergirl (2x week/3-4 hours per day/months and months), while continuing to polish the original firish routine.  i also volunteered to step into a leadership position for solar flare for our annual quest for fire conclave at burning man, becoming the group’s shin, or fire mother, for the year.  separately, i made it into a brief spot on chinese news, to my surprise.  in march, i did my first movie-hooping in the flick doggie boogie:  i was filmed in two dream sequences, one in front of a tree of drumming hippies, the other spinning fire atop a hill overlooking san francisco.  by far my favorite gig during the first quarter of the year involved donning a fro for a disco party- only managed to have it fly off my head a couple of times.

in april, months of practice came to fruition with major performances with glittergirl and firish, in both the flow show and the fire arts expo.  i also took a great spin business/instructor’s training class from glittergirl and got to spin for urban planners at a spur benefit where larry harvey spoke.  in may, i helped open a hotel by spinning fire by the pool (where i was told i had to put a shirt on under my vest because my bare chest was too sexy for the crowd).  then played ecstatically with other pyro’s at firedrums.

photo by herm pugay, 2010.

in june, had the best campout of the year with solar flare at a nature reserve in sonoma county.  that was followed by firish at precompression and a summer solstice burn at sutro baths.  i spent several hectic days at the end of the month editing solar flare’s burning man fire conclave submission, which helped us secure a spot in the great circle.  in july, solar flare brought it to monterey for their burning man regional and to sand by the ton in oakland.

august was solid burning man prep, working with the 42-piece solar flare to make our performance amazing and beautiful.  in september, it all came together at burning man with our annual fire opera with salon soleil, followed by our performance in the great circle at conclave before a crowd of thousands.  at the end of the month, a few of us returned to sutro baths for a celebratory equinox burn.

photo by april mietz, 2010.

october saw solar flare at the crocker art museum in sacramento, where we brought fire love to their anniversary event with the vulcan crew.  then i spun just outside the powell bart station with temple of poi, sporting the new walrus look.  the end of the month was topped off by a halloween gig in which i had to pull some drunk lady away from our fuel depot.  she was looking for fake blood to play with.  gotta love sf.

in november, my hooping world came to a crashing halt with a surprise back injury.  managed to pull something learning disc golf, of all things.  (wish it had been from something more dramatic, like pulling children out of a burning bus)  subsequently, i had to cancel several gigs, alas, but was able to channel my energy into co-authoring the new firish piece for 2011.

after weeks of healing, december brought another personal spinning celebration of the heavens with the lunar eclipse.  then, supported solar flare at a strategik nye party that unfortunately got shut down just before flame on.  despite the let down, managed to bring in the new year surrounded by my wonderful peeps;-)

photo by waldemar horwat, 2010.

by far, the best shut down by police had to be at an impromptu solar flare jam in soma.  we had two cop cars show up for that one- the officer i spoke with apologized, saying it was obvious we knew what we were doing.  my best costume failure was at sand by the ton when the entire crotch of a newly made pair of pants ripped wide open moments before a solo.  (yes, i went anyway.)  it’s difficult for me to pick out my best performance of the year; seems like there should be several categories to consider and rate.  the reality is i liked parts of a few different performances.  i will say that the flow show and fire arts expo were fantastic experiences- really proud of those performances and all of the blood, sweat and tears that went into making them happen.

if i had to pick one performance for the year, i would have to say that my solo at the fire opera had a lot of magic to it.   even though i botched my routine in several places, the crowd was with me from the get go and i gave it all i had- it was a mutual gift that i won’t ever forget.  funny how that tangible connection doesn’t necessarily translate well to video. but i digress…

yes, 2010 was amazing.  can’t even count the number of practices and jams that happened in support of all of the above, not to mention the hoops that were sacrificed during the process. (insert moment of silence here)

photo by bill taylor, 2010.

with the earth continuing its path around the sun, i’ve got lots of new hoop shenanigans already in the works: a new hoop duet with bene is in the planning stages; firish continues to practice our new piece; new solar flare routines are spiriting around in my head.  in addition, i’m almost done with the prep for my intermediate skills classes, and look forward to both putting some real work into a kickass demo reel and making vast improvements on my website (like, ahem, posting more often).  i look forward to new seasons full of possibilities; more practice, more jamming, more renegades, for sure; as many big gigs as possible; exploring new dialogues with other spinners.  continuing my path to completely release my inner kahuna in each and every spin.

one thing is clear.  without a doubt, i could not do all of this insanity without my peeps, who continue to inspire me, encourage me, share my passion, and teach me how to live the life of a rock star.  it definitely takes a village to raise a kahuna.  in particular, warm, grateful hugs to mayhem, pixie, glittergirl, khan, crimson rose, bax, ms. sim, steve w., jaden, maestro, super v, firekitty, memory, my solar flare crew (s.f.f.y!), my firish crew, camp nucleus, my bah peeps, strategik, my podlings, and fellow boddhisattvas.  thank you all for an amazing year!

ultimately, my hooping is always a gift to you;-)

kahunahula

photo by kylla benes, 2010.

photo by benjy feen, 2007.

photo by benjy feen, 2007.

thanks to benjy feen for these pix from one of my favorite ambient mafia parties, ever.

photo by benjy feen, 2007.