You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2007.
The Allstars perform in a rather ungratifying location at the YELP! holiday party, but shine nonetheless.
“To answer your Q’s:
We have picked up the basis of our moves from the few videos on the net which were around when we started in 2004 – Anah was quite inspirational! – and through bruises, patience and experimentation we’ve developed our own. Our style is dictated quite a bit by the music and party scene we have here in berlin, which is different from that of the US. It’s minimal and arty as opposed to the shiny and high-tech feel of the States. Our ‘jams’ are also a little different: we like to organize ‘club nights’ (HooplaHappenings) featuring hoops and djs who spin hoopy music; in winter we rent a space for indoor play (WinterPark) where fans of orbital arts come to jam; and we stick to one, sometimes two, hoops at a time.
Best wishes,
Balazs&Rachel
HoOpLa!!!!!!! “
Just back from a trip to Berlin, where I reached out to the local hooping comunity, the most visible members of which are the HOOPLA folks Rachel und Balazs. I got an excited email back from them right away, inviting me to join them for a practice session up in the hipster neighborhood Prenzlauer Berg where they teach classes at a yoga studio.
Based on anecdotes of the difference between Australian hooping and USAmerican style (Australians, apparently, focus on multiple hoop play and rarely limit themselves to just one)(if you are Australian and reading this, please feel free to weigh in by posting a comment), I was intrigued to find out if there were differences in hoopstyles between the Bay Area and Northern Europe as well. Where, for example, have Rachel and Balazs picked up their moves, their tools of the trade? Can you get hoopmaking ingredients in the hardware and home improvement stores just like you can stateside? How many folks are taking their classes? Do they have free and freestlye hoopgroup meet-ups the way we do over here, and if so how well-attended are they?
Stay tuned for the answers to these questions, because as it happened, with my visit to their vibrant city (which was also my home for three years in the reconstruction era, 1995-1998 ) so short and chaotic, we couldn’t make it happen. But we had such a sweet connection that I’m sure it will happen in the future, and I plan to stay in touch and get all my curiosities satiated.
At a dinner party that my friend Uta threw in my honor, meanwhile, hooping was one of the hot topics. She insisted on showing my hooping videos to her girlfriends, and I had to answer a slew of questions about my practice and hoopmaking and so on. Shortly thereafter I got an email from HooplaBerlin informing me that one of those women had already signed herself up for a class.
That brings my total number of converts to– let’s see, there’s Catherine the magazine editor; Laura the foundation director; Greer the Empress of Connecticut; Jyll the nonprofit consultant; Kent the class action attorney; Christopher the international finance consultant; Naz, Elliott, and Susan if not others at the Tin House Writer’s Conference; Marcia the cuddle party maven; Helena the novelist and at least half of her cronies at the Writer’s Grotto; and now at least one member of the cultural studies department at the Freie Universitaet in Berlin, Elizabeth.
Visualize me pervaded by a sense of inordinate satisfaction.
