Join Boston Flow, Boston's most inclusive spinning arts community, for a variety of workshops during ArtWeek Boston! This year we invite you to meet up with us around the city to learn how to dance with different flow props such as hula hoops, poi, and staff. Now you can finally learn how to impress your friends at the next festival you go to, or just pick up some new skills to practice and grow with! Prop manipulation can be a wonderful and therapeutic workout, especially because it is so easy and fun to pick up. We at Boston Flow can get you started on your spinning arts journey!
For ArtWeek 2016, we've installed four affordable workshops around the city designed for spinners of all levels:
1. Introductory Hula Hoop Class with Hoopercat - 4:00PM Sunday, May 1 @ Boston Common
Hoopercat is a visual and performing artist from Boston. Her hula hoop acts strive to be energetic and theatrical as well as sometimes interactive. Offering workshops and entertainment to private events and venues, Hoopercat engages her audience to experience the art from inside and outside the hoop. She entertains for children's birthday parties through to the nightlife industry offering a range of skills from single hoop, multiple hoop, LED, and fire hoop performances. As well as being a performance artist, Hoopercat is also a graphic designer and provides her own visual art to accompany the show.
This ArtWeek Boston, Hoopercat will be teaching an introductory hula hoop class “Pro Hooper Starter Kit: Three Tricks For Finding Your Flow.” She will explain beginner level tricks to inspire experimentation in personal flow and tips to keep the flow going! No hoop necessary.
2. Introductory Poi Workshop with JapanSkinny - 6:00 PM Monday, May 2 @ Boston Common
Steve Chinafat, aka JapanSkinny, started spinning poi two and a half years ago purely for the visual aspect, later coming to appreciate the health benefits as well. When he’s not spinning, you can usually find him at the piano, or practicing magic. Making people smile is something he enjoys INCREDIBLY, and events such as ArtWeek are a TERRIFIC place for that!
JapanSkinny will be leading a poi workshop on hybrids: geometry on a wall plane, and tips on getting into them and out. No poi necessary.
3. Intermediate Hoop Tech Class with Mastah Scrams - 1:00PM Wednesday, May 4 @ Copley Square
Sarah Cramer aka Mastah Scrams has been hula hooping for three years. During the long winter of 2015 she started to put her focus into mini hoop and mini hoop tech while being snowed in, and she fell in love. She loves incorporating her own style and dance into her hoop flow. She is active in the Boston flow community, and enjoys teaching and sharing hoop skills with others.
Scrams will be leading a workshop on mini/twin hoop tech, covering the 1:1 theory and exploring different hybrid formations, timings and directions. The workshop will also explore flowers in different timings and directions, and how to use CAPS to transition between timings and directions. If time allows, she will also review some 8 step CAPS. This is a more advanced workshop. Please bring your own hoops.
4. Intermediate Staff Workshop with Jaska Isola - 4:00PM Friday, May 6 @ Magazine Beach
Jaska Isola studies electronic music production and sound design at Berklee College of Music and practices traditional staff spinning. His initial interest in staff spinning was inspired by the character Darth Maul in the movie Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Throughout his youth, he couldn’t imagine any object cooler than a lightsaber, and as they go, double sided lightsabers are even cooler! It wasn’t until the summer of 2013 when he discovered that other people spin staff. Since then, he has taken it upon himself to master this art at whatever pace can be managed alongside his academic and musical pursuits. He is excited to see what he can pass on to others!
This workshop will focus on developing rudimentary staff spinning skills — within the grasp of attendees of any level — which we will then integrate and apply on broader levels as the workshop progresses. Instead of merely learning a few specific moves and tricks, attendees will leave with a comprehensive knowledge of the principles of traditional staff spinning which will make learning any move as easy as using a walking stick. Come enjoy the sunset, cool summer air, even cooler music and learn an even cooler skills at this coolest of cool workshops! Please bring a staff or any staff-like object 4’-6’ in length with equal weight distribution (pole part of a broomstick, tension/curtain rod, a strangely perfect long stick you found on the ground, etc). Staffs will not be provided.
Find us on Facebook.com/groups/BostonFlow for more info!
