I highly recommend checking our Shakti Sunfire’s blog post here. The orginal article from Gapingvoid can be found here. This struck home for me.
December, 2008:
Playlist
I thought I’d post some of the music that’s getting heavy rotation on my ipod right now. All of this music is available on iTunes.
Beat’s Antique, “Collide” – Check out Roustabout. We just saw them perform down in San Diego with Bassnectar and they put on an awesome show as usual. The new album is even better than their last, “Tribal Derivations.”
Evil Nine, “All the Cash (feat. EL-P) – EP” – In particular I like the Alex Metrix Remix & the Glitch Mob Remixs.
Kraddy, “Android Porn/Steppin’ Razor – SIngle” – I like the Android Porn song. It’s a good track to hoop to if you want to work on changing your speed with the music.
I’ve also been loving Janaka Selekta’s live set’s in San Francisco. His album hasn’t been released yet but you can here some of his music at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Janaka-Selekta/41732490966 . He’s also playing New Year’s Eve in Chicago , http://www.freakeasy.net/.
SF Int./Adv. DROP-IN Class w/ Miss Rosie & Rich
Join Miss Rosie and Rich Porter for this Intermediate/Advanced Drop-In Forum.
What it is: Three classes over three weeks for intermediate and advanced hoopers to bring their questions on moves and tricks with a single hoop.
How it works: The class will be loosely structured, and will offer students a space to hoop and ask questions as they come up. Some material will also be planned by Rosie & Rich.
How to prepare: Make a list of moves you have questions on, and bring it to class.
Who it’s for: Hoopers of an intermediate or advanced level. Fundamental techniques will not be covered in these classes.
Details: Rosie will teach on the first and third classes, while Rich will be assisting. The second class will be led by Rich, with Rosie co-teaching. This class will not cover Twins hooping.
Dates: Tuesdays January 13th, 20th, 27th 9:15 – 10:30 p.m.
Class Investment: 3 Class Pass for only $45! $18 Drop In for single classes.
City Dance Studios: Studio A
10 Colton Street
San Francisco, 94103
HoopConvergence 2009
I’m excited to be participating in this years HoopConvergence in Carrboro, NC. For information visit HoopConvergence.com.
“The first Hoop Convergence in 2008 brought together of a wide variety of hoopers from across the continent to create a synergistic learning environment where ideas, techniques, and energies were shared. This year, we’re putting together a full schedule of workshops, panel discussions, crafting sessions and community jams with lots of live music. The Convergence will be held in the beautiful Hooper Haven of Carrboro, North Carolina, an area rich with devout hoopers, grassroots communities and biodiversity. We’ll be bringing together the skills of talented teachers and performers from across the continent.
Come hoop for 4 days and 3 nights at Chestnut Ridge Retreat Center, just outside of Carrboro, NC. The retreat center rests on nearly 400 acres of beautiful NC forest.
Hoop Convergence honors the many paths of hoop dancers. Whether hooping is your personal spiritual practice, livelihood (through teaching or performance), your vehicle for social outreach and community building or ALL of these things, this gathering will inspire and enrich your journey.
This year’s convergence happens to fall on Mother’s Day. We wish for the hoopin’ mamas to treat themselves to this magical experience in celebration of life and love alongside our hoop-sisters and brothers.”
Cateye Diagram
Vulcan Tech Blog #4, Rich… not Ryan.
~°~ calling friends of the flow ~°~
My close friend Khan is putting together a showcase. The orginal blog entry an be found here.
“Have you ever wondered if your performance was not fire and was not glow, if you had a blank stage, dance/theater lighting available, any kind of music you want and the freedom to fully express your inner reality in a dance with your prop, and if you were creating this for an audience that was there specifically to watch you flow — not to party/dance, not for a fashion show, not to benefit anything (except themselves and those performing) and most definitely not to watch a Man burn — what would you do? I suspect it would look different from your usual party/burn performance, but it might not (pushing into a new way seems more fun). I’d love for us to discover which it was (and sometimes why). I want to see that show!”
Follow the link to read the entire piece. I am excited to see how this develops.
*painting by Michael Parkes
Hooplab.org
I registered Hooplab.org and registered “thehooplab” on YouTube.
I’m not sure exactly what is to come of these but the idea arose after a fruitful jam session with Khan. I would like to build a community website that encourages co-collaboration on progressive movements. This would be a place to post video’s and discussion on new moves. Constructive criticism would be encouraged. Process based video’s would be encouraged rather than polished performance videos.
This clip of Khan and I was shot with the intention that it could be a starting video on hooplab.org.
I’d also want to cross-pollinate the website with poi and staff videos.
Now I just need to find some co-collaborators.
Wham-O to release adult hoops.
Last Spring, I started researching methods of producing lighter, stronger hoops. The old kids’ hoops from Wham-O were an obvious place to start. Could Wham-O make a better hoop than black polyethylene irrigation tubing? So I shot them an email out of curiosity asking if they had explored adult hoops. I received a very short email response stating that they had already begun manufacturing adult hoops which would be released in the spring of ’09.
Spring is quickly approaching. I’m very curious as to what a Wham-O adult hoop will be like. As far as I know, no one within the hooping community has seen the new product. Did they research size, weight, etc?
This could potentially have broad-reaching effects on our community. Since Wham-O has been pretty close-lipped about this, I can do nothing but speculate as to their strategy. Wham-O’s products are marketed to mainstream America, not to our little fanatic niche. My speculation is that they will be building low-end hoops that won’t satisfy “hoopers” but will provide an excuse to the rest of America to pick up an adult hoop. Will this be the catalyst for a second hoop craze?
An incomplete Manifesto for growth.
This morning I found Bruce Mau’s Manifesto (through Bre Pettis). Bruce Mau is graphic design genius. In college I was infatuated with his ability to redefine the issues of architecture. I’ve plucked the parts applicable to spinning here:
1. Allow events to change you.
You have to be willing to grow. Growth is different from something that happens to you. You produce it. You live it. The prerequisites for growth: the openness to experience events and the willingness to be changed by them.
2. Forget about good.
Good is a known quantity. Good is what we all agree on. Growth is not necessarily good. Growth is an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to our research. As long as you stick to good you’ll never have real growth.
3. Process is more important than outcome.
When the outcome drives the process we will only ever go to where we’ve already been. If process drives outcome we may not know where we’re going, but we will know we want to be there.
4. Love your experiments (as you would an ugly child).
Joy is the engine of growth. Exploit the liberty in casting your work as beautiful experiments, iterations, attempts, trials, and errors. Take the long view and allow yourself the fun of failure every day.
5. Go deep.
The deeper you go the more likely you will discover something of value.
6. Capture accidents.
The wrong answer is the right answer in search of a different question. Collect wrong answers as part of the process. Ask different questions.
8. Drift.
Allow yourself to wander aimlessly. Explore adjacencies. Lack judgment. Postpone criticism.
12. Keep moving.
The market and its operations have a tendency to reinforce success. Resist it. Allow failure and migration to be part of your practice.
13. Slow down.
Desynchronize from standard time frames and surprising opportunities may present themselves.
14. Don’t be cool.
Cool is conservative fear dressed in black. Free yourself from limits of this sort.
16. Collaborate.
The space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.
17. ____________________.
Intentionally left blank. Allow space for the ideas you haven’t had yet, and for the ideas of others.
18. Stay up late.
Strange things happen when you’ve gone too far, been up too long, worked too hard, and you’re separated from the rest of the world.
19. Work the metaphor.
Every object has the capacity to stand for something other than what is apparent. Work on what it stands for.
20. Be careful to take risks.
Time is genetic. Today is the child of yesterday and the parent of tomorrow. The work you produce today will create your future.
21. Repeat yourself.
If you like it, do it again. If you don’t like it, do it again.
22. Make your own tools.
Hybridize your tools in order to build unique things. Even simple tools that are your own can yield entirely new avenues of exploration. Remember, tools amplify our capacities, so even a small tool can make a big difference.
32. Listen carefully.
Every collaborator who enters our orbit brings with him or her a world more strange and complex than any we could ever hope to imagine. By listening to the details and the subtlety of their needs, desires, or ambitions, we fold their world onto our own. Neither party will ever be the same.
33. Take field trips.
The bandwidth of the world is greater than that of your TV set, or the Internet, or even a totally immersive, interactive, dynamically rendered, object-oriented, real-time, computer graphic–simulated environment.
34. Make mistakes faster.
This isn’t my idea — I borrowed it. I think it belongs to Andy Grove.
35. Imitate.
Don’t be shy about it. Try to get as close as you can. You’ll never get all the way, and the separation might be truly remarkable. We have only to look to Richard Hamilton and his version of Marcel Duchamp’s large glass to see how rich, discredited, and underused imitation is as a technique.
36. Scat.
When you forget the words, do what Ella did: make up something else … but not words.