Contact us to book your date! Spring and fall weekends fill up quickly.
Angular Momentum Hooping is available to bring participatory hooping to outdoor events, such as the Goldsboro High School Class of ’76 Reunion, where three generations of people played with hoops during a Saturday afternoon cookout. We travel with a generous supply of extra-large hoops that are perfect for people who haven’t hooped in years, as well as smaller hoops for children. (Bigger is easier for grown-ups; most people can hoop with a hoop that is at least as wide as they are tall at shoulder height. Very few people over 75 pounds can hoop with a store-bought hoop.) Stock and custom hoops are available for purchase.
A few examples of places we’ve taken the hoops:
- Clydefest in Pittsboro
- Sanford Boys & Girls Club
- RootzieFest music festival
- Street fairs
- Political campaign kickoff parties
- Garden parties and picnics
- Jazz Festival
- Wayne County Arts Council Art in the Park
- Senior Centers (demonstration, participation, and classes)
- Pittsboro’s First Sunday Street Fair
- High school reunion
- Family reunion
- Wayne County Agricultural Fair
- 4th of July Festival
- Community celebrations
Clowns and balloons
Balloon twisting, balloon hats, and general clowning (in funny clothes or full clown wardrobe and makeup) can be arranged through my friend John Hogan, working as Ubi the Clown (online at ubitheclown.com).
Hooping in a Parade
I hooped in a parade for the first time at the Goldboro Jaycee’s 4th of July Parade and Festival in downtown Goldsboro, NC, in 2007. The gig came to me through Ubi the Clown and I thought it would be fun; didn’t think too much more about it until the night before and then I wished I had prepared a little better. My thoughts on parade hooping:
First, sparkles and costumes matter. I discovered, far too late, that I didn’t OWN anything in Red, White, and Blue, and the best I could do out of my own hooping wardrobe was a light blue sleeveless shirt. For a 4th of July parade in the US South, that wasn’t going to do. Fortunately, John had a red t-shirt he could donate to the cause and I cut the sleeves off to facilitate shoulder hooping. I will be shopping for costumes between now and next year’s parade. Sparkles and sequins would be fun, too, and would blend in perfectly in a parade. A troupe of dance students had mylar pompoms and sequin trim, several parade-units behind me.
2008 costuming note: Hoop Wear for Grownups!!
Next, a sparkly hoop would have been a good investment. I used John’s Ubi-hoop, large, water-filled, with some sparkly tape. But had I planned better, I could have made a red, white and blue sparkly hoop. My own dance hoop, taped in silver and gold and black, was too small to hoop and walk for the 1.5 miles of the parade route. Which brings me to the next topic:
Hoop size: Big. Bigger is easier (you know this, if you’re even thinking of hooping in a parade, on foot (can’t speak to hooping on a float). I tested my extra-large, heavy hoop (1″, 160 PSI tubing) hoop, but that was heavier than I wanted to use for an hour straight. I decided on the Ubi-hoop because it was the only one of my larger hoops that had sparkly tape. It worked. I probably didn’t need the water for my own hooping. It’s roughly 60″ in diameter, made of 1″, 100 PSI tubing.
Marching: Well, it’s not really “marching,” per se. And do what you can to NOT line up behind the motorcycle troupe. You don’t need the fumes… I started off waist hooping, and did fine for a few blocks. Then I realized my hips were taking a beating, with the extra swivel required to hoop and walk at the same time. (I was already committed to hooping through the Street Festival that followed the parade, 12-4 pm, and therefore couldn’t risk injury or exhaustion.) I started shoulder hooping, and doing lift-return to shoulder-lift with opposite hand-repeat, and that worked MUCH better. Wish I’d started it from the beginning!! Shoulder hooping took the stress off my hips and freed my legs to keep up with the vehicles ahead of me, while still looking good to the crowd.
In the Goldsboro parade, there was a lot of interaction with the crowd. I didn’t know the details about the festival to follow, so I couldn’t tell people exactly where to come after the parade for free hoop lessons. It might have been helpful to have that information ahead of time. They found me downtown anyway, and we had a crowd hooping before very long. That’s some of the people from the parade in the photo above.
