Last night I performed at The Monthly Rumpus. The event was magical. So many friendly enthusiastic individuals and a diverse crowd set in the surreal scene of the Make Out Room in the Mission. The Rumpus Monthly is a poetry/book reading/party/musical acts etc… sort of a high brow variety act of friendly creative people. If you manage to make it to the end of this post, there is a video of my performance.
Since all the readers were introducing themselves, I took the liberty to do the same, introducing myself as a designer who never intended to start hooping, but then applied my design background to my hooping. If you’re reading this, it’s probably old news to you but it was a great way to segway into my little performance. I hope that some of the people in the audience were able to follow what I meant when I said that I literally draw shapes with my hoops, just like I am when I’m designing. This was also a great way to take some pressure off myself. People love a backstory if the story is good.
The stage was tiny and challenging but I did well considering and everyone seemed to love it. I’m happy. It was another chance to practice my unpolished performance skills, and most importantly I feel like I actually made many people happy. Everyone was so profuse in their praise and seemed enthusiastically excited.
Making myself a person seemed to inspire more conversation. People were asking me questions that I’ve never fielded when I’ve performed as a hooper rather than designer/hooper. The conversations and lines of inquiry lead me to believe that people were actually thinking about what it was that I was doing. I wasn’t just the entertainment. I’m not recommending this strategy if you’re being paid to perform but for me, in this gig, starting off with something mildly effacing worked wonders.
Today some articles have been popping up about the event. The first blog entry about the event came from Steven Maynard (Thank Julie for sending me this). His word’s are humbling:
They were interspersed with a couple musical and humorous acts, but the “shining” moment, literally, was a hoopdance by Richard Porter. A guy with bleach blonde hair, in tight striped pants, dancing with glowing hoola hoops to Cirque du Soleil-esque music. SOOO COOL!…or should I say “sick”?
I linked to his profile, but check out the rest of his and his performance partner’s site. I didn’t know there was something called hooping, or that it has an international following and community, or that there could be instructional classes, much less a DVD, or that there are Hoopie awards. I know I saw Michelle Obama do a little hoola hooping, but that is nothing compared to this!
The second article was a write up of the event in SF weekly. This article does a nice job of capturing the feel of the event and their brief description of me was entertaining and accurate:
Where in San Francisco can you get a night of author readings about a pubic hair leading a teenager astray, “homogenizing the way the world goes mad,” and screwing a prostitute named Gretta; watch a “hoopdance” by an architect with a penchant for hip-hop and glowing hula hoops; listen as a musician-performance artist re-enacts a phone conversation from 7th grade; and enter a raffle where the prizes include free porn or free Ritual coffee?
As I’ve written this, another review has been posted, including video of the full four and a half minutes of my piece. The video is a bit long especially given that the dimensions of the space pretty much kept me hooping above the waist or off body. I do a few new things I’ve been playing with recently but keep it pretty straightforward especially given the rug that was sliding beneath my feet.
Richard Porter from karpevan on Vimeo.
The night ended with Julie giving me a copy of Stephen Elliot’s book, the Adderall Diaries. Stephen was there and a super friendly guy. I can’t wait to dive in, Ariane has had wonderful things to ay about the book. Thank you so much Julie for the book, the opportunity, and not to mention your help editing the Hoop Technique script. The opportunity and you’re graciousness were appreciated.