Last Tuesday night, my dear friend - we'll call her "Plenty" in this context - took me out to the park in the dark and showed me something astounding.
Around 9:30pm, we loaded up the trunk of her car with fuel and props and drove out to a very specific location in Golden Gate Park. We loaded up our arms with gear and towels and buckets and she led me into a thicket of trees. It was so dark I could hardly see my own feet on the uneven steps down the sloping hill. Follwing the sound of two drummers and a smattering of voices, we arrived at a clearing where I could make out shapes of a few other people in the darkness. Then people started lighting up:
Fire dancers from http://krissy.vox.com/
Fire dancers meet here every week to practice and perform. There were people spinning poi, hooping, dancing with fans and lances, and generally playing with fire. There is something primal and mesmerizing about this kind of dancing.
Spinning from http://krissy.vox.com/
Plenty took her first poi class only around a year ago. I'm astounded by how much she's learned so quickly. Here she is spinning poi - she's the one in the red tank top.
Plenty spins poi from http://krissy.vox.com/
This past January, Plenty took up hooping. You're probably familiar with the hula hoop, but you may never have seen it used like this:
Plenty and the hoop from http://krissy.vox.com/
Plenty's now teaching hoop classes, and I've been to two classes in a month-long series. The hoops we learn with are heavier and sturdier than the one I had as a kid, so I have various bruises on my legs and hands. But the class is so fun that it's worth the pain! So far I've learned these moves: lasso, grab, flirt, bump.
I have no intention to ever fire dance myself, but I do like to watch.
