Teachers for the next HoTS are all members of the Hooping Mad teaching staff:
Cat
Cat has been teaching in the non hoop world for many years and in many different environments. Cat came to Hooping Mad in 2009 and regularly teaches Starter, Improver and Intermediate classes in Bristol and choreographs for and performs with the Hooping Mad Community Hoop Troupe. She is currently Bristol based. Her love of teaching combined with a love of hooping makes for carefully considered classes in a style that is easily accessible to students. Her familiar but sensitive style tends to put students at ease and therefore elicits the best from them. She reports having shed a few silent tears of pride watching her classes grow and develop as individual hoopers with their own unique style. Cat’s special interest is flow and creativity within hooping, using tricks within dance and movement. She personally enjoys the freedom that a hoop can bring, having previously felt shackled by an apparent inability to let go in dance… she blames many years of ballet and a self consciousness in earlier years. She also enjoys finding variations of ‘standard’ moves to bring an individuality to hoopdance. This all sounds very grown up but many of us are aware of Cat’s ability to oversexualise any hoop move… sounds like a workshop in the making (but maybe not this time).
Workshop for HoTS:
Connectives
“The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.” (Goleman.D., 1996 Emotional Intelligence, London: Bloomsbury Publishing)
Often in hooping we are concerned with the next big trick and the satisfaction in nailing a complicated trick is hard to beat. However, we can become so concerned with trick perfection that the hooping that joins these tricks together is ignored. Hoopers can become ‘stuck’ and find transitioning between tricks difficult or impossible or find it hard to break out of set sequences.
Although extensive research has been published on ‘flow concept’, flow within hoop dance can mean different things to different people; a state of oneness with the hoop, a fluidity of movement, an out of mind experience. Ultimately, a more free and enjoyable hoop experience
This workshop aims to increase the enjoyment of the ‘connectives’ within our hoop dance. It will include set exercises that will help the hooper towards achieving a state of flow. Whether you are an accomplished trick technician or at the start of your hoop experience, this workshop will benefit all.
Zoe
Zoe has been hooping with Hooping Mad since 2008 and has been teaching her own adult dance classes since early 2010. She is a keen performer and regularly performs burlesque, glow and fire hoop shows under her pseudonym Delilah Di Sgrace.
Zoe taught Hoop Burlesque workshops at SWhoop 2010 and 2011 and co-taught (with Kay) the highly popular creative flow workshop “Feel my Bush” at SWhoop 2012. Zoe also teaches Burlesque.
Workshop for HoTS:
Hooptease (Burlesque Hoop)
Let Bristol burlesque dancer Delilah Di Sgrace take you on a whirlwind adventure to discover your burlesque (or boylesque) alter-ego.
The focus of the workshop is fun as you learn the art of posing, peeling and teasing, then take it up a level by adding a hoop into the mix. This workshop will also look at development of a stage persona and connecting with an audience, as you develop the confidence to strut, shimmy and set pulses racing. This workshop is fully clothed. You will put more on before you take it off, culminating with learning the mystical art of tassel twirling with your very own pair of hand crafted tassels!
If you have them please bring a long pair of gloves (opera style!) and a feather boa or scarf. Don’t worry if you don’t though as Delilah will have a few spares!
Kay
Kay has been hooping since Christmas 2009 and been attending Hooping Mad classes since January 2011. She has been teaching her own adult dance classes since June 2011 and began teaching for Hooping Mad in Jan 2012.
Kay regularly performs, both solo and with a number of troupes including The Travelling Light Circus, Chimera Fire Troup and The FireWorks Collective. Her alter-ego Tess La Coil is also a master of hoop burlesque performer! Kay is widely known in the hoop world for her involvement in hooping.org’s Hooping Idol competition.
Kay has taught poi at SWhoop 2010, 2011 and 2012 and cotaught (with Zoe) taught the highly popular creative flow “Feel my Bush” workshop at SWhoop 2012. Kay has also been on a teaching tour in the UK and US with her partner Dustin Hubel.
Kay “feet are the new hands”
Workshop for HoTS:
Feet are the new hands!
Anything hands can do feet can do better! This workshop aims to get you dancing with the hoop on your feet, not just moving in and out of a trick but exploring the range of movement available while foot hooping! Covering a variety of foot hooping moves from the basics to more advanced. First of all focussing on different ways to get the hoop started on your foot from moving or static, then working on increasing mobility and finally some big bold tricks that will wow your friends!
Please bring a mat if you have one. Hooping Mad will have some mats spare but one of your own will mean you can have a bigger covered floor space/be able to double up.
Hannah
Hannah has been hooping with Hooping Mad since 2008 and has been teaching her own adult dance classes since early 2010. Hannah was part of the highly successful Team Bristol in the first Amazing Hoop Race competition run by Hooping.org
Workshop for HoTS: Partner Hooping
Hannah will be drawing on that experience to bring you a workshop focusing on hooping with a partner: exploring shared space and the shapes you can create together using one, two or even more hoops, and trying out characters and movements that complement and play off each other.
Suzi
Suzi is the latest member of Hooping Mad. She has been hooping since 2010 and teaching Hoop Fitness and Children’s classes since April 2011. She is a keen performer and regularly performs glow and fire hoop shows under her pseudonym Suzi Sparkles. Suzi taught Fitness Hoop at HoTS 2012.
Workshop for HoTS: Hoop Fitness
Anna S
Anna has been hooping since 2010 and teaching HoopDance in Cheltenham since 2011. Anna runs the Cheltenham Hoop Jam.
Workshop for HoTS:
Street Feet
Before I found and fell in love with hoop dance I had always had a love of dance; ballet, jazz, and in more recent years mainly street dance and hip hop. I took a bit of a break from my hoops during late pregnancy and for the first few months of my daughters life, following which I found myself a bit rusty with many tricks and struggling to find my flow, what I really wanted to do was ‘feel it’ again, and dance. So, I have been back to my roots so to speak. I started going to dance classes again, ones without hoops, and then began to explore how I can bring together street dance and my hoop.
In this workshop we will be focusing on our footwork and learning some slides and glides from street dance to explore how you might integrate that with your hoop dance.
You’ll need to be able to slide your feet along the floor easily so will need to bring footwear without much grip, dance trainers or pumps if you have them, or an old pair of socks you don’t mind getting mucky would also be fine.
Nick Broyd
Nick has only been hooping since September 2010. He was the first Hooping Mad Apprentice, attending multiple classes to fast track his hooping journey. He has become an accomplished hooper fast and gained international recognition, winning the worldwide hooping competition, Hooping Idol 2011, which is run by hooping.org.
Nick has taught at the Italian Hoop Convention, Spanish Hoop Holiday, UKHG, Brighton Flow Fest and has performed at SWhoop 2012. This year he will be teaching at Manchester Hoop Congress, the Spanish Hoop Holiday and will be a main workshop leader at SWhoop 2013. Nick has been nominated for Males Hooper of the Year in the 2013 Hoopies.
Workshop for HoTS: Tricks workshop tbc
Free Time Co-ordinators:
Gale Francis
Based in Bristol and Bournmouth
Gale Francis is a UK hooper based in Bristol. She started hooping at the British Juggling Convention in 2010 and had her first lesson from Dani Treacher. As her obsession grew, she founded the Boscombe Spinners based Dorset in 2010, where she first started to teach. Since then she has taught workshops around the UK, including the Miltion Keynes Juggling Convention Bungay, HoTS 2012 and local events in Dorset and the south coast. She has made the crossover into performance, showcasing her skills at juggling conventions and other flow art events. As part of her practice, she uses a variety of other props including contact staff and poi, which she translates to hoop, expanding her trick base.
Heather
Heather has been hooping with Hooping Mad since January 2010 and has been teaching her own adult dance classes since Jan 2012.
Heather aka The Happy Hoopy Wool Junkie, also makes a range of extremely amazing woollen goods that are well worth checking out.
Heather will also be coordinating the Saturday night craft session.