Berlin’s Hula Hoop Festival Spins LED Hoops Into 3D Light Paintings

Flash mobs, glow bracelets and LED hula hoops? Suprisingly, these aren't the ingredients to a banging rave, but rather Hoopurbia, the world’s first urban hula hoop festival which launches its third-annual edition on June 24. There really is a festival for everything, we suppose.

Hula hoops may have saw their rise in the late 1950s when first invented, but it has since become an object outside of kitsch due Michelle Obama revealing her secret hoop skills, plus that ab-firming exercise made known by Beyoncé and Pink. Berlin has become a bit of a landing spot for hoop-crazed dancers, as there is a hula hoop dance school in Berlin's Prenzlauer Berg district, Hoopla! Berlin, which opened in 2005. But more than a sport, it’s a way of life for these artists.

Take their recent flash mob at Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz, where dozens of dancers spun their LED hoops around their waists, necks and limbs into what looked like 3D Spirographs brought to life (surprisingly, no one hit each other, despite the cloxe proximity). “When you start to mix multiple hoops, light, and choreography," said Rebecca Halls, the festival founder, "you can create complex geometric patterns, sequences and loops. There are endless possibilities.”

Halls has been known to work with technicians and light artists to create light painting techniques with hula hoops. Next up, she's bringing back the retro hoop with a futuristic twist: laser hoops—plastic rings that "shoot" laser lights and are controlled and directed by each dancer's ring—will premiere at the festival.

Alongside performances, workshops, and dance parties, the goal is to change the reputation of glow-in-the-dark hooping beyond your typical Go-Go type of performance in mainstream nightclubs. Part-residency, part-performance, the festival offers a six-day training program with daily hoop classes. This year’s cast of teachers includes California-based dancer Tiana Zoumer, Malcolm Stuartfrom New York, and Kiani Del Valle from Puerto Rico. Amateurs are welcome, and the age range spans as wide as the timeline of the rings themselves.

“We have a number of sound, visual, and installation artists to take hula hooping into the experimental world of media and performance art,” said Halls, who is gearing up to lead the program. “The hoop can be used as an instrument to create light and possibly even sound.”

The upcoming festival offers Hoop Tech workshops, masterclasses, choreography, video shoots, a performance showcase and a world hoop dance competition called So You Think You Can Hoop. Anyone can enter the competition, says Halls, as it’s not only about hooping, but about stage presence, style and flair. The LED flash mob shakes down on June 27.

Hoopurbia kicks off June 24-29 in Berlin. Check out their fanpage and tickets available here.

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