Author: spinmatsuri

I am sitting in a crowded breakfast room at my hotel in Warsaw this morning, getting nourished and ready to fly to the UK for the next three workshops on the WHD Dance tour.

Hopping.org wrote up a feature on the tour today, so I thought I'd better post here and keep you up to date, too.

So far, the workshops have been exciting and every one has been different. We have danced in dance studios, an old church, a gymnasium (the other kind of hoopers were shooting baskets nearby), and outdoors. The workshops have been getting bigger and bigger. I hear that Glasgow is sold out.

My personal experience jet-setting around the world and staying with a range of hosts has been terrific so far. I hate to jinx anything, but my flights have generally been on time and uneventful. In the past few weeks I have slept in a tent, on an inflatable mattress, in an attic, on a futon, and in several comfy beds. It's been a real treat to meet everyone and to fit into their lives for a day or two.

The dance workshops themselves are never long enough. Two hours gives us all enough time to explore the moves, but never quite enough to get into the duo and solo sections. Every workshop has homework!

One of the things that I am learning is how diverse our skills and strengths are. For every hooper that gets a particular move, there is another one who struggles with it. I am learning new ways to teach things I had not even considered covering, and figuring out better ways to explain all of the moves in the dance.

By the time I get back to Tokyo, the workshop will be perfectly smooth. And then I will get to present it in Japanese!

There is a feeling I have when I dance with a group: a connectedness that emanates from the heartbeats of the dancers who have practiced together.

So many of us are solitary hoopers by choice or circumstance. We dance solos and freestyle, sometimes in company at festivals and jams, but rarely in sync with the hoopers around us. Dancing a group choreography is a completely different experience. I let go of my individuality and melt into the precision of the dance. I support my troupe as a member, not a star, so that our movements shine. There is no me, only we.

When the choreography has been practiced and polished until it is integrated into each dancer’s muscle memory, then the spirit of the dance takes over. Nobody panics about the next 8 count, it simply unfolds as everyone moves. The kinesthetic spirit that rises is the reward for rehearsals and for giving your self to the service of the group.

Many hoop dancers shy away from group choreography. It’s a commitment to learn and practice. It may require them to put away their best moves, shelve their personal style. Or perhaps it is a struggle to learn new forms. It is definitely not for the hooper who wants to dance exclusively in her own way.

For the rest of us, group choreography is a structure that gives our dance form. It allows us to work within constraints, finding dance within the counts of the choreography, offering challenges along the way as we figure out how to make it our own.

Most importantly to me, group dance creates a shared history that cements our troupe and our community. “Do you remember when we did that dance?” Yes, we do. We all have a story to tell about it.

This is why I create the WHD Dance: to help dancers connect with each other and with the amazing spirit of united movement, and to give the world of hooping a collective experience.

I invite you to join in the WHD Dance this year to find this feeling for yourself.

Hoop Camp is host to the World Hoop Day auction and this year the WHD Dance is represented with a t-shirt that shows off the structure of the dance. We wore similar shirts in the tutorial videos and you'll see me in one when I'm teaching the dance on tour.

Win the auction for this shirt and you can wear it for rehearsals or confound people with the mysterious code.

/Specs: purple cotton Uniqlo shirt, M size. Hand cut stencils, acrylic paint. Wash gently & avoid high heat drying.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zVhNKp4KHw]

Welcome to the official kick-off of the WHD Dance 2012. The tutorials and teaching materials are available, the music is ready for download, all we need is you!

The WHD Dance is a global hoop performance and video project. You can join in for free: learn the dance with your hoop friends, perform it for World Hoop Day on 12/12/12, and send in the footage to be included in the compilation video.

The choreography presented is a framework for your dance.  Feel free to vary it to suit your stage, your dancers and your event. Dancing solo? Teaching it to your beginner hoop students? Doing a flashmob? Performing for the head of state? There are creative ways to adapt this dance to any situation.

If you want advice on variations or assistance on a particular point in the dance, request a tutorial by dropping me an e-mail. I’ll do my best to get one to you, even while I’m on tour.

The choreography, music, and planning are the culmination of months of effort by hoopers and friends in Tokyo. I want to thank Kana, Ayumi, Bekah, Manami, Minako, Colleen, Uko, Masahi, Minoru, Kouchi, Swinky, Rob, Jesse, Huw and especially Tod.

On behalf of everyone, I welcome you to the WHD Dance 2012. Let the worldwide hoop dancing begin!

 Turning Around (4:10, MP3 on Soundcloud)

Turning Around is an original song written especially for the WHD Dance 2012. Huge thanks to my talented and patient musician friends who put this together over the course of several months after I mentioned the idea on a whim to Huw during a ukulele lesson. We composed it on the ukulele and wow did it evolve!

Via meetings and dinners and late-night recording sessions in my bedroom, six of us brought it to life. We all had our fingers in the pie; mostly these were our roles:

Composer: Huw Lloyd
Lyricist: Jesse Koester
Vocalist: Esther Thirimu (Swinky)
Arranger: Rob Moreno
Producer: Kristen McQuillin
Executive Producer: Tod McQuillin

The lyrics are on the Music for WHD Dance page, in case you want to sing along.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=li8kjd_r7N4]

Part of the WHD Dance this year involves hoop dancing with a partner – creating a unique duet together prior to a choreographed section of the dance. To help you get a feel for duo moves and concepts, Ayumi, Kana, Tink, & Bekah demonstrated some of their ideas for you.

Here are five broad concepts for you and your partner to explore. Use any tricks you like and experiment with ways to match or mirror the moves, change levels, or face towards or away from each other. Bust out some silly play and don’t forget hoop hugs.

Our rehearsals show that duos are especially effective when the partners are close to each other, make eye contact, and touch.

On the surface, it must seem as though nothing is happening on the WHD Dance project. No updates, no new videos…what’s going on? Behind the scenes, things are busy and progressing quickly.

On Friday, while waiting for a computer repair, I finally dove into one of the sticky problems in this dance choreography – formations for different numbers of dancers. The staging isn’t the same for a pair of dancers as it is for six. Now I have little drawings to guide us. And at the same time, I resolved a niggling little problem with the end of one section, much to my relief. So the choreography is officially finished.

This morning, I have stencilled the dance structure onto t-shirts. I woke up from a dream knowing that this would be a useful teaching aid. You’ll see them in the WHD Dance tutorials, and if you come to a workshop on the tour, you’ll see one in person, too.

And in a few hours from now, the tutorials filming begins. Ayumi, Kana, and Bekah cleared their Monday calendars to help out and I am supremely grateful. With the footage in hand, I will edit like crazy and  have the tutorials online at the end of the week.  Stay tuned!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM4TXf5v-4I]

Hoop Tokyo and I collaborated to present a sneak preview (and technically, to premiere) of the WHD Dance at Kamakura beach on August 14th. Ayumi, Mina, and Mana learned the dance with just few hours rehearsal two days before the performance; they are true troupers.

Here’s a snippet of the choreography. This segment is my favorite bit because it’s the first time I’ve seen it danced as a group outside the visions in my head and it moved more beautifully than I imagined. The crowd cheered; how encouraging is that?

I’m looking forward to polishing up the choreo and teaching you the dance through video tutorials and in person over the coming months. World Hoop Day is 12/12/12, so you will have lots of time to practice and prepare.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXmXS_2ljnk]

Here’s a short tutorial on a move that’s in this year’s dance. It’s called Sidekick. Get ready to balance! This 8 count kick will work your core and your obliques. Who needs a gym when you can hoopdance?

I adapted it from a rhythmic gymnastics move. The gymnasts did it in 4 counts while running across stage. I slowed it right down and stilled it. Not as dynamic, but definitely more possible for most hoopers.