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9/9/09– together with hoopers around the planet celebrating hooping on this day, we Bay Area folk (over a hundred of us) met up at San Francisco’s Civic Center–right in front of (back of?) City Hall. (Maybe Gavin was watching.) There were Santa Cruz, NY, Austin, even Canadian and French hoopers there! What a treat. I caught the free tutorials from Nicole Wong of Cherry Hoops, Miss Rosie of Hero Hoops, Christabel of HoopGirl, Rich of isopop. I hope I caught something symbiotically from talking, hanging, and just a tiny bit of hooping with Fraulein Spiral and Brecken, too.
While on the platform in Oakland waiting for the train to SF, a woman approached me and asked about the hoop, whether I’d been to Burning Man…She–Susanne–is a photographer, and wound up coming with me to City Hall and shooting us for a bit. Turns out she collected me as a “stranger” in this cool “100 Strangers” project. Someone posted a comment on the Flickr page saying I look like a mermaid.
photo by Philo Hagen
This photo here is by my wonderful friend Philo Hagen, who covered World Hoop Day beautifully here.
My tank top, by the way, is from Hoopla Berlin (“guaranteed to make your hips smile”), 
and arrived the day before World Hoop Day as a surprise gift from my bestest Berlin girlfriend (bbg?) Uta. It seemed obvious I was supposed to don it for WHD. Since it’s yellow with day-glo orange, I decided to go all the way with the kawaii candy colors.
It was a nice way to go out with the hoopers of the Bay Area.
photo by Philo Hagen
There was a time when I wanted to write a book about the culture of hooping. My initial proposal (before it was, upon the advice of my agent, merged with HoopGirl’s book idea) covered influences and convergences–places where various forms of dance, movement, and music touch on hooping (e.g. bellydance, object manipulation, acrobatics, yoga, hip hop…) It also covered some key personalities: the innovators who have made a distinct mark on the art. I’m not going to name names, but you probably could guess them.
In any case, that wasn’t the book my agent thought would sell, and she was undoubtedly right. We hoopers are still a pretty tiny subculture. My agent said that would be a good 3rd or fifth book on the market on the topic, assuming the movement was catching on, but not a good first book, which needed to be something more akin to a hooping bible, laying the groundwork.
If in the future I do return to the original idea, though, I just spent a week gathering some good fodder for it, at the Spin Cycle Camp at Burning Man. The camp was designed and organized by Rich “Isopop” Porter and his wife Lauren, and built with capable crewmates Grant-Kenny-Ryan–for whom there can’t be enough gratitude. Our shadestars, their coverage drifting slowly with the sun’s progress (and the center post functioning as a sundial to boot!) were perfect, and were the envy of everyone who checked out our camp.
Most of the biggest names in hooping lived at Spin Cycle, and the few who didn’t dropped by a few times and came to our massive jam on Thursday evening. No classes were offered, and there seemed to be a sort of collective sigh of relief at not carrying that particular responsibility, which is always a part of every other kind of hooping gathering/conference/convergence that happens. We were really just there to build community.
Some folks did have performances to do–you’d see them rehearsing with earphones on, or getting themselves done up in their fineries–flowers, leaves, feathers, metallics, whites…–but for the most part there was just a lot of chilling and laughing and hooping, punctuated by hibiscus with agave plus or minus tequila (thanks to S), pickled eggs (thanks to K), unaccountably healthful, freshly-prepared food from the kitchen of (another) K, and non-dairy ice cream and truffles (thanks to R, who secured her place in heaven by bringing such gifts).
The quality of hooping around camp was just over-the-top ridiculous–but I’d have to say I had most fun watching G, whom I’d never seen hoop before, and who really embodies grace despite gender and stature, and M, whose intimacy and imagination with the hoop melts me into a puddle of Desire. I had my own best hoop moment on the full moon Friday night, after we came back from the wedding (there was not just one wedding that went down, but two, among the campmates), when the Light One (L) and the Healer (R) and I took the unwatched stage with our hoops. Weird magic was afoot all that night, and channeled right into our dance.
photo by Philo Hagen
In the hushed undercurrents of the Spin Cycle, there were some old divisions and wounds, some of which found healing; and there were some romances, some of which came to fruition. There was some jealousy, as certain ascendant stars outshone other equally-talented folks. There were moments when I was reminded of the dynamics of high school: the cool kids, the jocks, the hippies, with me and Philo (editor of hooping.org) feeling kind of like the yearbook and newspaper staff, existing both inside the system, and observing it from the outside.
Overall, though, I couldn’t help but keep asking, as I did of A one morning at Center Camp, what makes hoopers such divinely wonderful people? Is it that hooping draws already-amazing people to it? Or is it that the hoop has a transformational effect on everyone who truly invests in it? A little of both, we decided…and there’s always more research to be done.
I love these men. Taking the art to new heights, they are.
To my unrelenting disappointment, I had to have a surgery the morning of The Flow Show, and so had to miss this and all the amazing performances. I was there in spirit.
