Halifax International Busker Festival

While I was in Vancouver, Nick asked me to come to Halifax in August to help him with a series of shows at the Halifax International Busker Festival. He was to put on a half hour show twice a day for ten days, which is a lot for just one person. I didn't know how I was going to make it happen, but I eventually figured it out and decided to help him out -- ha! What fun! What experience! It was an absolute blast! I helped build fire tools (an umbrella and little flowers), put out tools, made and lit circles of fire jelly, worked a fire puppet, spun a fire hula hoop, and even performed fire rope duets with the master poi jedi himself. Someone up there likes me!

So many interesting people performed at the event! Jacob and Sophie of Dream State Circus were certainly inspiring to be around -- they give an excellent show and are wonderful people, and it was amazing to perform with them for the fire all stars act! I was also able to connect with Marissa Gough, an excellent fire eater / flesher / belly dancer that I met briefly at Wildfire earlier this summer as well as some other lovely locals. Thanks to these fabulous Haligonians, I now know how to eat fire. It tastes bad, but is rather fun! Soooo... This wraps up my Great Summer of Poi! "Great" is too small a word to describe it, really... Looking forward to next year!

Omaha Shows and Workshop

Wow! These ladies know how to make a girl feel like a Rock Star! Everywhere we went I saw posters for the show and the workshops -- strange, but seriously cool. The performance went exceedingly well -- there had never been a fire show before at a club in Omaha, so it wasn't too difficult to impress them, but I still feel like I did well. Though the owner missed both shows (lol!), he heard infinite praise and is very happy that he flew me out to perform. The turnout for the workshop wasn't as high as I'd hoped, but everyone learned quite a bit and we had a great time! Since many of them hadn't seen a live poi performance, at the end I did a little glow show for them with Kathryn's glowing poi from Flow Toys, and that was great fun. Also, despite popular opinion that states otherwise, people in Omaha do indeed know how to party hardy. I now know this from personal experience.

Vancouver Visit and Diversity Festival

Now that was a vacation! What a treat to spend time with Nick and his lovely roomie, Alex. Nick recruited me to help teach his twice weekly beginners class, which was great fun, and I got to take the advanced class afterward. We took a whole day and three ferries to get out to the Diversity Festival on Texada Island and had an absolute blast. Nick gave a brilliant performance on the main stage, and I got to spin fire on the beach! I left with two awesome souvenirs: a hipsack designed by the nicinator himself, and a set of fire poi that nick made a few years ago. He gave me the poi because mine are MIA from Wildfire and I perform the day after I get back to Indy. Thoughtful, eh?

We had two fun outings as well. First we went hiking on Mt Seymour with Alex. It was snowy! I was slipping and sliding all over the place, and spent more time on my booty than my feet on the way back down! Second we went to see Cirque du Soleil's new show, Corteo, right before Nick took me back to the airport. What a lovely send-off for an amazing visit! Woo!

Workshops and Performance at Wildfire

Ah, what a weekend! Both my classes and the performance were received beautifully, and I had an excellent time! It was wonderful to work with Brad, fNi, of New York to create a performance piece. I especially enjoyed teaching the poi flow class. What a gift it is to me to be able to give people access to what they didn't know they already had. To see people begin dancing in their own way truly warms my heart! Camping with the Vulcan crew was lovely -- Noel, Ian, and Greg are fun dudes! I even took one of Greg's workshops and got some helpful pointers on some of the harder stalls. And Noel got me hooked on contact staff, I've got the bruises to prove it! Thanks to Claire for hosting me in Brooklyn! Check out these photos from the event! Set 1. Set 2.

Bali Poi Training with Nick Woolsey

It .. was .. amazing! I experienced nearly two weeks of intensive poi practice with the world's most incredible poi instructor in one of the world's most beautiful locations! I had been wanting to learn from Nick for years -- there was something about his spinning style (in his videos that I'd seen) that told me he was my kind of poister, and was I ever right! The direction in which he takes poi matches mine exactly, and it was thrilling to work with him and learn from him. As a surprise bonus, I got to appear as a demonstrator in some the instructional videos he was filming while I was there. Whoa! I'm going to try my best to solidify all of the beginnings he offered me, and look forward to going back for more!

Poi Workshops at Firedrums, California

What an expansive experience! Spinners from all over the world congregated in the Santa Cruz mountains to learn and share object manipulation arts. Countries represented include Japan, France, Scotland, Ireland, Sweden, and of course people from all over the US.

I learned so much and want to thank all of the people who taught poi workshops. It was amazing to see how many different directions people have taken the art! I look forward to next year -- oh, the places we will go!

Special thanks to Ian George for driving me, and to Kael for putting together the video below -- there's a part two also. It really captures the event!