World Hoop Day Dance

For the last few weeks, I’ve been playing with something I’m really excited about. I wanted to try choreographing a hoop dance. So this is it. I’ve had great feedback and suggestions from hoopers online and had several chances to try it out with my local hooping friends. Thanks to all of them, it’s a pretty good dance.

Since I like big projects and bringing communities together, I decided this was going to be a dance that could be done by any hooper on the planet to celebrate World Hoop Day on 10/10/10. It’s suitable for beginners who are eager to practice and for experienced hoopers who can add their own style, variations, and charm to the moves.

I’ve kept the dance steps bold and simple so they look great when there are lots of people doing them in a group. They are mostly off-body tricks with smooth transitions and there are lots of “catch up points” in case you misspin or lose the beat. All of the moves can be learned in about an hour.

There are a few interesting tricks, like Ole (which I should rename Oops, since it is the one where I threw my hoop onto the train tracks), and the Full Body Isolations. If you need help learning these moves or any of the others, shout out and I’ll try to find or film a tutorial for you.

So hoop friends near and far, here’s the real plan: learn this dance and dance it with your hoop group on World Hoop Day, October 10th. Film it, put the video online somewhere, then send me the link. After WHD, I’ll compile a video of all of us dancing this together! If you want to declare your commitment, you can sign the roll call at PledgeBank .

In addition to the video tutorial above, there are printable notes on the moves with counts, lyric cues, and alternates.

And an iPod version of the video (18MB m4v) for your rehearsal convenience!! (and with correct link now, thanks!)

Posted by kuri at September 22, 2010 03:24 PM