Hoop dancing

My first Hula hoop performance at Hip Bone Studio in Portland Oregon . March 14th 2009.

Ashley Allison
Hoop Dance

A Circular Connection to the Life Cycle and Balance

I came across hoop dancing in the summer of 2008, I found it to be beautiful and a fun way to release energy . I'd always loved hula hooping and wanted to do it more ever since I was a child. I started practicing in September. I went to a home I had seen with a load of hoops in the yard. When I got there a women answered the door, she was a women I had seen hoop dancing in the summer time. I thought it was a mighty strange coincidence that I would come to her home asking for a hula hoop, being she was the person that inspired me. It was meant to be. I bought a hula hoop from her and from then on my life has been full of circles, life's ups and downs, coming and going. “Coincidences”are now something I'm not sure exist. Every things meant to happen for a reason. I have learned to go with the flow and live spontaneously. I love my hoop and my hoop has shown me a new philosophy on life. I feel as though I have entered a place where I can more deeply understand the earth, consciousness and path of life.

Hooping Journal

September 30, 2008
I’ve been Hooping off and on now for about two months . I decided to do my senior project on Hoop dance I think that its the only way I can get my self to actually learn how to do this, and I don’t think there is anything else I’m as interested in right now. I think this is going to be fun, and a crazy thing to do for a senior project. Other than the huge bruises I already have on my thighs and hip bones. Man. These Hoops are heavy and man it gives you a good work out. I’m Hoping I’ll figure this out quick. I really like to hoop dance because it makes me feel like I’m Balancing out and giving my self a fun energizing break from life when I do it. I hope that hoop dancing will work as a senior project because it seems kinda like something you should just do for your self and not school, but then again its kinda cool that it can be both. I really hope that I can learn how to do this in time. Right now I need to go practice.

October 16, 2008

I Finished my two day four hour hooping intensive from Hoopshine today. My mom paid seventy five dollars for it and I don't think I learned very much from the class so I'm kinda bummed out. I did not make any real connections to other hoopers. I did meet Erika Faye who is a Hoop Dance teacher who said she might be on my PRC but she seems like she might not have time to help. In the class we learned a lot of basic stuff that I think I could have learned my self watching videos on Youtube.com because I've already started practicing the ones they thought me. We learned how to Hula , butt bump, shoulder hooping, and a lot hand hooping. I guess I should have just tried a less expensive or higher level class. I think from now on I'll just teach my self or learn from people who are willing to teach me for fun.

December 15, 2008

I'm going to be teaching a hoop dance class for the lower school some time in early July. Or
before the semester ends. The teacher I'm going to be doing a class for bought some tubing for me to
make hoops for the kids. He was really nice and today he actually helped me make the hoops for the
kids after school. We made around ten hoops and it only took us like forty five minutes including
cutting dowels into pieces small enough to fit and connect the hoops After cutting them out of a long
coil of PVC piping. We connected them using hot glue which was not as strong as using PVC
connectors, but we did the best we could. He even gave me some colored masking tape to beautify the
hoops. I'm very happy to have had making the hoops. I can't wait to finish decorating the hoops so I can give them to the kids.

March 11, 2009

Today my cousin Cody and I were out on David's sun roof, practicing for the
performance. We'd been up there for a while just jamming when David's neighbors came home and
started playing in their back yard. One of the kids is a 3 year old girl. She was very fascinated with the
fact that I was up on the roof and was asking her older brother if she could come and play with us. She
was just standing down there looking up at me mesmerized by way I would like to believe was my
hoop dancing, and not just the fact that I was dancing on the roof. I finally could not take the idea of the
little girl being interested in running around on a roof top so I got down and brought along one of the
little hula hoops I'd made. I let her play with it but she was still to small to understand what she was
going to have to do to get the hoop to go around her waist so she just danced with it and tried to do the
helicopter and just ran around in the grass tossing the hoop joyfully. The two older boys and girls also became interested in hoop dancing as soon as they saw me playing with there younger sister so I was able to show them how to do a bow and give them all a chance to try,and then let them ask me how to do any thing they wanted to know and I was able to help them out. It was really fun and really satisfying to know that they had fun with me and the hoops. When we were all done playing I got some practice in for the performance and they were my little audience. They really liked It and they actually gave me a lot of confidence because I could tell they were being honest.

Friday March,13th 2009

There is only one more day to my performance and its been really sunny out. I could not let me
self go to work today. I called in sick. I think it was really important that I practice today. I went down
to the Water front where all the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom and met up with friends to
play hacky sack for a bit. I danced in the sun until they showed up and then went back to hoop dancing
once I got fed up with the hack. It was really nice out and I had a really fun time hooping with my
friends around and sharing my hoop with them. I stepped in some goose poop dancing in the the grass.
I didn't really care. That's how happy my hoop and the sun made me today. After my friends all had
other business to take care of I walked over to the park blocks. On my way there a guy loading a truck
stopped me and asked if I would hula hoop for him. I said no at first because he was loading a truck,
which was kinda scary. But then I noticed he was a fancy Pearl district caterer and thought what the
hell. I took my bag off and did a few tricks and spins and then was going to be on my way,
when the guy asked "Do you want a piece of cake?" "I'll get you a piece of chocolate cake for that." He
came back with a fancy fudge square with caramelized walnuts and then asked me "Are you
Hawaiian?" I told him I wasn't and stated that it was kinda a funny question because I'm planning on going to the University of Hilo in Hawaii. And then he said "Wow! I went there." and in his food cart he had every Hawaiian style appetizer I think I've ever see. After talking about school the guy offered me a job. That cake was good.

I finished my walk to the park blocks with a sweet taste in my mouth with a sour one. After hooping off of Burnside aside the Mother and child elephants for 2 hours I met a women who just moved to Portland yesterday from Bend, who loved to Hoop dance. I learned a few tricks from her as she was being written a ticket for not have a license plate on the front of her car. I felt so bad that she got fined while helping me out. It felt negative that I left the park and made my way towards the bus mall.

Hoop dancing today continued earning me a profit from almost no work. When on my way to the bus mall I was stopped by two homeless people a man with what seemed to be a bum leg and a younger women with a shaved head asked me for some change. I said "No, but I'll hoop dance for you maybe it will cheer you up." I was hoop dancing in front of Pita Pit for some homeless folk and people inside the restaurant were practically breaking there faces against the window to look out at me. I ended my dancing with a bow, to practice for tomorrow. As I leaned back up the man was handing me a dollar. I could not take it even if they really did have a fatty wallet filled by bills with every United States President printed on them . I just didn't feel right. I told them this and so in exchange they both told me a joke. I can't remember the jokes so I guess they weren't all the funny. I do remember the old man made fun of the cheer leading competition in town and incorporated the Pita Pit into a cheer. Today seemed to be quite the confirmation that hoop dancing was meant for me because its always bringing me around people with similar beliefs or people who might be able to offer me something or make my day better. I think Hooping is a good trade.

Friday March 27, 2009

During Spring break I Hitchhiked down to Oakland California to help my grandmother do Hospice care for my Great grand mother. Although the friend I'd met this weekends trunk was full I was sure to stuff my collapsible LED hoop in. Getting to Oakland and being there are a whole other story but I would like to say that just having my hoop with me helped me realize a lot of things about life that can also be interpreted by the hoop. The idea of the life cycle. My great grandmother was 85 and died of a brain tumor while I was taking care of her with my grand mother. It seemed that the tumor had emerged from thin air because two weeks before my grandmothers arrival in Oakland she had seemed perfectly fine to every one. What I want to know point out is that my family, with great grandmother alive would span five generations: Great grand mother one , grand mother two :aunt three :cousin four, my cousin is pregnant and due July fifth. Think about all the families that have this many or more generations alive at one point in time. I think that my great grandmothers time had come and it was time for a new birth to come of the passing or the other way either works because its a circle. The earth could not sustain human life if we never died and so for every birth there must be a death. Its the life cycle and the cycle is a circle. This is what the hoop has been representing to me. The hoop is a symbol of balance in everything in this world.

Saturday March 28th , 2009

On the way home from a very heavy and uplifting experience in Oakland we missed our transfer on Gray Hound due to a funeral procession for four police officers that were shot in Oakland a week ago. We are stuck in San Diego for two extra hours due to this procession. And I could not Hoop dance in the station! After being there for like 30 minutes I got really bored and started to Hoop dance. I was having a good time, just ignoring all the funny looks I was getting. I let a lady try my hoop out even. And she was totally good, her husband started filming her and we were having a good old time until two security guards came up to us and said "No filming and no Hula Hooping!". I was appalled and just looked at them like "What?" and then I actually asked "What? Did you say no hula hooping?" they told me if I really wanted to I had to go outside. I couldn't believe it. It was as if I had some how hurt some one with my hoop. I took my hoop and sat down next to my grandmother and started complaining. "Do you see any signs on the wall that say NO HULA HOOPING?" I really think they were just bored of being at work and really wanted me to be bored while I waited at the station for my bus. As if the station was a place made for nothing to happen. I wish I could have complained to the management or something but I was lazy and just sat down and drank some icy red die cherry flavored liquid as I awaited the next Gray hound to Portland.

The Teaching Experience
Teaching this class was a very good experience because I learned my ability level in teaching and I built friendships with the kids in middle and lower school. The difficult part was teaching the second and third graders, and keeping every ones attention during both classes. All in all it was an educational experience to every one who attended, including me.
When I was teaching the second and third grade Hooping class I had a very hard time following the class out line in the order I had written it. The kids seemed to really get how to hula hoop from the get go and the ones who didn’t picked up on it soon after. It was very hard to get the classes' attention and so moving to the next trick. I wanted to teach but it was very difficult. We spent most of our time doing tricks the kids already knew how to because they just wanted to have fun and did not really wish to expand there knowledge of Hooping. As a collective they were very distracted by each other and wanted to play but there were about four or five kids who really enjoyed the class and wanted to try the new moves. It was really rewarding to see the few little guys who could not Hoop at first be able to once the class was over.
The middle school class was the day after the second and third grade class. Amy just asked me to do it when she saw me walking down the hall with my hoop after the class I did for Brian. The middle school class was so big that the kids had to share hoops because I had only made ten. In the future I will be sure to ask how many kids are in the class. I didn’t really give my self enough time
to organize this second class. If I had waited a few more days I could have made more hoops. So the
number of Hoops verses the class size made a small issue. In the end it was okay because they worked
together and it helped the class have a team work side to it. I felt like this class was much easier to
manage then the second and third graders. Every one who chose to participate from the beginning
continued to enjoy the class and participated for the duration of the class. The kids all really liked to
hoop. A group of boys hooped with out dropping the whole class. It was really fun to teach them tricks
to toss into there dancing. I'm really happy I taught these classes they helped me see how hard it is to
control a large class. I would like to be a. English as a Second Language teacher so this is valuable
information to me. The next time I teach a hooping class with younger kids I will hopefully have a
friend who knows the hooping tricks I want to teach and can help me with the class. It would make it
much easier to help and get the attention of the kids. I think that the kids really enjoyed the class. A few
of them actually come up to me and say thanks once a week. I think its a sign that I should definitely
teach another class even though it was a tough experience.

Trillium Charter School Hula Hoop and Hoop Dance Class
The Purpose of this class is to provide the lower and middle school Kids In Brian's dance class and Amy’s Physical education class with the opportunity to learn Hoop dance and have a new activity at Lunch or free time. I feel this class also gives me an opportunity to help expand the K-12 Community.
Outline of class :
1.Stretching With the Hoop
a. Hoop in hands over head left and right sides.
b. Hoop in right hand bend to right side then left, switch to left hand bend to right side .
c. Toe Touch.
d. Twist side to side with hoop in hands.

1. Hula Hooping!
   a. Teach how to rock back and forth with one foot in front of the other.
   b. Allow time for the rhythm to come to every one.
   c. Hula hoop with eyes closed.
2. Walking around with the hoop Spinning.
   a. Keep the hoops momentum going while stepping to each side of you. Do the slide.
   b. Walking Forwards.
   c. Walking backwards.
3. Spinning inside the hoop
   a. Move around in the direction the hoop is going.
   b. Have an anchor and pivot foot to bring you around.
   c. Spin while walking around.
4. Dance with your arms
   a. have every one wiggle their arms.
   b. Let them do there own thing and move arms and dance while walking around.
   6.Trying every thing together
   a. Hula hoop ,eyes closed ,walking around ,turn inside hoop ,wiggle.
   b. Allow Time for every one to free style
   7.Question time
   8.Dance for kids.
   SECOND CLASS
   1.Stretching
   2.Repeat first class movements
   a. Hula
   b. walking
   c. spinning
   d. Arm dancing
   3.The Helicopter
   a. Hold hoop above head horizontally
   b. Demonstrate rotating the hoop over the back of palm
   4.Vertical Hand Hooping
   a. Arm extended Hooping on hand , between forefinger and thumb.
5. Putting every thing together
   a. Let the kids experiment with what they learned.
6. Hoop Jam
   a. Every one gather in a circle and take turns showing off there new dance moves.
   My First Stage Performance

On Saturday March 14th, I performed at the Hip Bone studio as a part of Scratch PDX, a monthly show where people can show case their talents in a intimate setting. Becoming a part of this happened by chance. I was at the Library after work one evening when I noticed a poster of a skeleton with a microphone on a small stage, performing stand up. I read the poster, “A monthly open stage night which provides a venue for performance artists of all Dance, music, storytelling, clown, puppetry, stand-up, short plays, improvisation. Seasoned performers. People stepping onto stage for the first time. Every month, diverse performers and an intimate atmosphere combine for an exciting event. genres to explore new material and get crucial feedback. Audiences have the opportunity to see local artists working at various stages of the creative process.”
This was the perfect venue to do a performance for my senior project. I immediately went onto a computer in the library and typed up a request to be in the show.
I was sent a conformation letter on February 13th but I didn't reply. A few days before the conformation was sent I found out through Myspace that a Hoop Troop called “Spiralocity” had performed there the previous month. I'd met all three of the girls in the Troop and they had actually invited me to the show after a Hoop Jam I had attended. All three of them had been hooping much longer than me and one had been the instructor for a class I had taken. It was very intimidating for me. I had thought that performing at Scratch PDX would be a good place to start, because it seemed like a pretty open minded community, ready to see new things. I was sure it would be the first time someone had performed hoop dancing there so I knew no matter how I did it would at least have some novelty. I felt like my opportunity had been taken from me. I was so scared.
Weeks went by and I still hadn't replied to the conformation email. I started to think about how silly I was for actually caring if the Hoop Troop was better then me. Of course they were, they had been hoop dancers for years and I'd only been one for 7 months. But if I didn't do the show I would never become a better performer. I had to do it. March ninth rolled around and Scratch PDX sent me another conformation letter. This time I replied with details about my performance.
After I sent the message I began to freak-out. I hadn't been practicing very much and I still needed a costume and a song. Days and days went by. I practiced and practiced but could not pick a song I liked enough to use for my performance. The only thing I had come to decide is that I wanted a song that was instrumental only. I had very little music on my I pod without singing so I went to some friends for some fresh tunes but nothing felt right. In the midst of searching for the right song my grandmother called me and told me my cousin Cody was back in town and gave me his number. So I contacted him and we planned a day to meet up, catch a movie and hang out with a friend of mine.
On the night that we hung out we made our way to a coffee shop called the “Waypost”. There were people playing songs they had writing on acoustic guitars and when we got back to my friend's place we started talking about how the kids who played were not the best but how we liked that there was a place for them to go and just play in front of people and share what they had created. Then Cody picked up a guitar with a two centimeter layer of dust on it and began to play for us. It was good, down to earth, soothing and exactly the sound I was looking to dance to for my performance.
I asked him to play for my performance and he was game. We spent three days together playing guitar, Hoop dancing and getting to know each other for the first time in five years. We came up
with song with bit of finger picking in the beginning to get a soft rhythm going and then the finger picking progressively turned into a simple three cord strum. It was beautiful and went perfectly with the way I felt and wanted to dance.
The day of the performance is when I actually tied my costume together. The inspiration for my
costume was from my philosophy of the symbolism of the hoop. The hoop being the symbol of the never ending cycle of life and death, of action and reaction of the Earth itself. I decided to be a flower growing on the earth living only to die and living only because of the presence of the sun. The sun being the music in this performance of Energy Spirals. I had an orange skirt and an orange lavender and lime green apron on hand and knew I wanted to use them as the petals of the flower. Then I went on a search for pollen and a steam. I asked my mom to drive me around and she insisted on us going to Top to Bottom which is an inexpensive hip-hop outfitting store. I really didn't want to go there because I didn't think I could find what I was looking for. I wanted to go to a store that I could remember seeing something frilly and flower like at.
When we got to Top to Bottom I prayed we would find something I could use because I was running out of time. In the store I picked out about 7 possible shirts and came out with one I actually really wanted for this make shift flower outfit. Then my mom found green leggings that actually matched the apron. Everything worked out. I added a jingling dance bracelet to my right foot. It was a random touch that really added a ethnic flair to my performance. After I was properly primped and ready to go, I ran to the garage where my cousin was playing guitar with my two brothers and we practiced one last time before we had to get to the studio.
When we arrived at Hip Bone studio it was pouring down rain and we were fifteen minutes late. We were soaked in Portland rain as we ran into the wrong side of the warehouse looking building. When we finally reached the correct entrance we were kindly greeted by the man that was hosting Scratch PDX. He lead us in to the Hip Bone Studio. The lighting was dim and only on in two corners of the room. Other performers had already arrived and seemed to be settled in, my nerves rose to outer most layer of my skin as I talked to the host about my piece and told him that my cousin Cody was going to be playing music for me. The host asked some questions about my senior project and I told him about hoop dancing. He said that we would be going last right after a comedian. We also had to talk to the lighting women, which made me very nervous because I didn't even really think about lighting so I just told her that I wanted it to be more red and less blue. She sent me on stage to she how my costume looked under the lights and adjusted everything to a completely different setting. She told me it looked good which calmed me down a bit. Then it was off to the sound guy and all we had to do was tell him that we were going to be playing acoustic and he was cool with that because it meant he didn't have to do anything. I also talked to a film guy because I forgot a camera which was very unfortunate because he told me that it would cost me twenty eight dollars to have him make me the DVD or a Youtube page, and I could not have both. It seemed like a rip off to me but I really had to have my first stage Hoop dance performance on video so I told him I would order it.
Meeting everyone and getting everything set up seemed like it took forever but there was still about fifteen minutes before opening so I wandered around the place with Cody trying to get comfortable. Another performer was warming up on stage so when she was finished we did the same. I thought it would make me feel more prepared but It only made me worried I would accidentally toss my hoop into the audience because they would be sitting only five feet away from me and only inches if I stepped too far in almost any direction.
Cody and I sat in the second row and saved some seats for my step dad and my mother, others had been invited or tried to make it but other things came up for many people. As I sat in the second row I began to wish there were more people I knew in the audience. People started to pour in while the Wood Vibrations Congo group played. I started to feel as if I was going to lose my bladder. My mom and step dad finally walked in just before the show started.
The first performance was called "Boditecture: Angles of the Body" by Kristine Anderson. She was a Dance graduate from some fancy art college. She did an Modern dance piece, harsh square movements along with rolling on the floor to the sound of a man going “Shhhh” and bottles breaking. It put me into culture shock. Second was “Innocent You” by Mike Gust. He preformed a scene from a play he wrote. His character was 12 and had wandered into a friends house after a murder had occurred, he monologued about how he wish he hadn't. A Puppeteer was next “Caracul's-Imprint on the Soul” by Penny Walter. It was about a mermaid that swam through the ocean looking at sea shells and glass. Then the the mood changed with a bit of Comedy. “Conversation for Three People”, written by Carl Laukkanen and performed by three other people, it was funny and hard to understand at the points when all three people were talking at the same time but then they would break off into their own little world and talk one at a time about things that seem unrelated to one another. It made me want to perform “Conversation for Three People”, it just seemed fun.
After that laughing fest a second one was in store. "Transplantation: The Portland Ex-pat Experience" by Jesse Alison was the guy I’d been waiting to see all night because he was the guy I was performing after. I told myself I’d be prepared during his whole show But I got super sucked into his performance. It was about hipsters and how he was one and he made jokes about colored sweaters, feeling like he was the odd one out back home and fitting in with his red granny sweater here. He made an umbrella joke and the best one was a joke about Couch street and how its pronounced. I was laughing and clapping at the end of his performance and freaked out when the clapping slowed down because we had not left our chairs for back stage yet. Cody and I leaped out of our seats and a surge of the nervousness I'd had earlier in the night came back. We ran back stage and waited to see the lights go off which was our cue.
Cody went on stage first with a chair, stage left. He started playing twinkly sounding finger picking and then I stepped out on stage and the lights shined down on me as I began to slowly stomp my right foot as I turned around my anchor left foot. My eyes followed the hoop as I lifted it into the stage glare, swung it down to my waist and started stomping harder with my jingling bracelet. It created a rhythm to the guitar playing and added a very strong tribal feeling to the whole performance. I was really shaky and tried my hardest to smile. The audience was very close to me so I chose not toss my hoop at all in case of accidental loss of control. I took other risks in my performance, I did my one shoulder hoop spin and popped my head back in with out losing the hoop. The shoulder move was my best and most successful move, it took the longest to learn and was the most rewarding part of the performance to me. Being able to show that off to people after having spent so many hours to learn it made me happy I could integrate it into my performance gracefully. When I completed the trick every one cheered. As I continued to dance I peered into the audience and smiled. I stomped my foot and kept dancing, keeping all my energy focused on keeping my body moving despite the major stimulation in my nerves telling me to hurry up. I poised myself and danced until I felt five minutes had passed. I’m sure it was less then five but I shimmied over to Cody and spun into the concluding bow and the lights went down. We stayed on stage after bowing together as all the performers gathered with us. The host said a few words about each of us. He said that I would be getting credit for the performance and asked what grade I should get. Every one yelled, “A!” and then he said, “If you didn’t like anything you saw here tonight.” and all of the performers screamed, “Do your own show!”. It was an awesome conclusion because after that we all started dancing on stage to music provided by Wood Vibrations.
After all the dancing and sharing of my Hoop, people came up to me and talked about the performance, asking about how long it took to learn certain moves they had seen me do. Shockingly all the stuff people thought was really cool I’d just fully got down the day before the; one shoulder trick and the jingly bracelet stomping. It was really encouraging to get all the feedback from people in the audience who were sitting out there watching me before. The real constructive feedback I received was from my family. My mom said that I didn’t smile or look at the audience enough and my step dad said that I was “Slouching a lot.” (Which I think is just my natural posture that I need to adjust.) I now know I have to work on these two qualities of my performance thanks to them. I noticed that I feel much different when hooping in front of people and I want to give the audience more of the feeling I get when I’m hooping in a more comfortable environment.
I am very happy with this performance. It feels good to know that I have actually learned enough since September to perform for other people. And to be able to show that to everyone was great. I’m also grateful for my cousin playing for me live, it provided more of the feeling I wanted to share about hooping. Because the music was coming from another person it put together a sense of community and life in my performance.
After doing this show I have gained confidence in my performing. I go out to Saturday market and dance on the water front and even earn some small cash in doing so. I am currently practicing hooping while playing the accordion. This was my future plan for my hoop dancing; to evolve into street performance. I am sure that where ever I go I can bring my hoop, put out my hat, get some one to play an instrument and have the time of my life while earning cash to stay at the next hostel I happen upon.