Why urban hoop dance and not rural hoop dance? How does the city create a certain dynamic in the world of hula hooping? In the most basic way, thinking back to the beginnings of my interest in the city, when I was a kid I got sick of making hoop videos on grass. I hooped on the street and the most exciting things would happen when I took my hoops into the city, rather than out in the fields on my own. I enjoy systems and architecture, so I was drawn to studying city space. By my final year of Media and Cultural Studies, I have found that the city brings with it lots of possibilities as a condensed and complex social space.
Hula hooping outside my house in Cambridge as a kid, I enjoyed the feeling of concrete under my feet in the summer and, with neighbourhood friends, we claimed the streets we lived on just by being present in them: filling them with play and music. By the time I reached college my personal 'flow journey' of hula hooping become very solitary: I longed for an inclusive space where newbies could learn to hula hoop side by side. I learned all my skills through YouTube between my bedroom and my street. I dropped GCSE dance. I never got on well with contemporary or ballet, even though in my final prop-based dance assessment I got a distinction for my hoop routine... I was never suited to dance in a class-room environment. I entered and won two local talent competitions as a solo act. But, a few years later in Brighton, I realised hooping doesn't have to be so lonely: because of groups like the Sussex Circus Society at my university and also because I took to the streets again, in a new way, to utilise and be part of a plethora of arts.
I'd like to say that I envision myself enacting my own personal phenomena with street hooping. This is because I haven't yet seen anyone hooping out in the street in quite the same way I do, as of yet. What I enjoy these days is finding brightly coloured graffiti and setting up my camera in front of it to jam out my tricks. Not only is this good practice for me, and a place to flow outdoors and by street art, but I also come into contact with members of the public and it can sort of become like a mini street show. Hooping while hanging with artists in the street is fun, although I mostly film when I go alone. Despite spending more time with people while hooping in Brighton, I still don't see any hula hoopers in the streets doing the same as me. Nonetheless, by doing my own thing, I imagine that I am part of the array of art in Brighton, like on the walls, and sometimes if I'm lucky and find a decent geometric-looking Sprayups piece with some colourful circles I feel like I'm a part of the wall.
It's great finding out about the artists behind the pieces. I love booming my own tunes in front of them, although I'm aware I'm going to need a bigger sound system! I am really looking forward to my module week in Performing the Urban on sound as a disruptive mode: I want to know more about bass culture and how it emerged on the UK scene. I will be developing this blog alongside my studies and later I aim to combine it with my auto-ethnographic accounts on street-hooping in my Cultural Studies module.
