“Hula hooping is a gateway prop,” says Ellen Phillips, co-founder of Grind City Flow Arts. “It’s usually the first prop that you pick up, but then you start learning all these other flow arts. It’s a whole culture.”
Flow arts combines movement and dance with the manipulation of some prop involved — like hula hooping, juggling, fan dance, or fire dance. “I got into it from the festival culture,” Phillips says. “It’s a little addicting learning new tricks. I didn’t know how to use my athleticism in a way that was fun. This I could do in my backyard with music that I love. And it was challenging because there are tricks that you can do, like hula hooping on your foot, on your leg, taking your leg out, doing multiple hula hoops at one time, so that’s what got me into it.
“What keeps me in it now, though, is definitely the community. It is the nicest community of people, always helpful, always willing to go out on a Sunday to the park if it’s a nice day and just hang out and hula hoop.”
This Saturday, as part of World Hoop Day, Grind City Flow Arts invites Memphis to be a part of that community — experienced and beginner hoopers alike — at the third-ever 901 World Hoop Day festival, this year at Memphis Made Brewery in the Ravine. “It’s a community, all-ages event,” Phillips says. “There will be food trucks, and you can grab a beer and sit out on the patio and watch a bunch of people play with hula hoops and pole dance and do aerial. So that part is all free to come to.”
From 3 to 6 p.m., there will also be workshops in hoop taught by local and regional instructors, in pole taught by the Bendy Beast Fitness, and in aerial taught by High Expectations Aerial Arts. A donation of $15 is recommended, and that $15 covers all nine workshops being offered. (RSVP at tinyurl.com/44ytpb8p.)
As for why there’s pole dancing and aerial mixed in with hooping during World Hoop Day, Phillips says there’s a lot of overlap in the communities. Grind City Flow Arts even recently started teaching hula hoop at the pole dance studio Bendy Beast. “I would say they’re all kind of a very similar art in terms of like movement and performance,” Phillips adds. “They all have different benefits, but we’re kind of all under the same umbrella of performance.”
In the evening, there will be a raffle giveaway and music by DJs. “And we’ll do what we call a fire flow jam [at around 7 p.m.],” Phillips says. “The first half hour, we’re going to bring in some professional fire dancers, but then after that, we’re going to open up the fire circle to anyone who wants to spin fire.”
There will be safety precautions in place, Phillips says, and you can check out Grind City Flow Arts’ Instagram and Facebook page for FAQs regarding this and other details. “But fire is very much a part of the hula hoop community,” Phillips adds, “so it kind of goes hand in hand. So people who get in their hoop for the first time when it’s on fire, you feel an auditory connection to your hula hoop. It’s wild. It’s an adrenaline rush.”
901 World Hoop Day, Memphis Made Brewery, 16 S. Lauderdale Street, Saturday, October 5, 2-10 p.m.
