(Hula) hoop dancing offers energized entertainment
 Hoop dancing has come to K-town.
If you aren’t a child of the ’50s, you may not know the term, but “hoop dancing” is the new name for hula-hooping.
The fad started circling its way back into the American cultural consciousness in the mid-1990s. Now it’s one of the attractions at this year’s balloon festival.
Brooke Fogarty, a Pellissippi State student, will demonstrate her skill—performing chest rolls, shoulder rolls and off-the-body hooping—Saturday the 17th 4-4:15 p.m. She’ll also offer instruction to children and adults both days at 5 and 7 p.m.
“This is actually a very underground hobby,” she said. “It’s very, very big on the West Coast. It’s my goal to make it as big here as it is there.”
Don’t think for a second that Fogarty’s talking about hoop dancing with the vintage plastic variety of hula hoop. She makes her own hoops from irrigation piping, because, she says, a good hoop is all about the diameter and the weight.
“The larger it is, the slower the revolution around the hips. It gives you more time to figure out what you’re going to do.”
In addition to making hoops, Fogarty just ordered a custom-made LED hoop that can be programmed to flash lights in one color, multicolors and special sequences.
“When you start hooping at a pretty fast pace, the lights leave light tracers,” she said.
And the spectacle doesn’t stop with LED lights.
“I’m about to get into fire hooping,” Fogarty said.
The gyrating dynamo can be seen hoop dancing day and night on YouTube.com.
“When I make the YouTube videos, I can barely breathe when I go to turn off the camera.”
 In between making online clips, she teaches a hoop dancing class at a local dance studio, runs a Web site and just performed on stage for a crowd of 2,000 at the Trinumeral Music and Arts Festival in North Carolina.
“I performed with EOTO. I was their live entertainment,” she said. “It was incredible. That band’s really into hula-hooping. It’s a real, real honor. They’re very big in the jam-band world. While they’re improvising, I’m improvising.”
Is she just a natural-born hoop dancer? Not quite.
“The first time I tried it, I was horrible. That was about November ’06. I had a heavy hoop. I got very frustrated. I didn’t pick it up again till March ’07. Then everything skyrocketed. I made a new, lighter hoop. I watched lots of hooping videos on YouTube and paused them a lot. I taught myself. Now I’m able to teach other people.”
Fogarty says she wants to continue performing before an audience.
“That’s a lot of people’s goal. A lot of hula-hoopers who inspire me perform at a club in San Francisco called Ruby Ske once a month. Kind of like the role go-go dancers used to have.” “Hoop troops” can be hired to perform at weddings, concerts and other events.
“Music is a huge part of my life, and the music I hoop to is usually planned out and thought out. It’s usually music that makes me want to move. I do everything improvised—it’s all off the top of my head and how I feel it.
“I love it. It’s very calming. I’m not one to meditate, but it sends you into a meditative state when you’re doing it.”
|
