How does twirling effect the world at large?

Ok, I have a reason behind this request. I need an international project to do for one of my classes at school, and I didn't have any ideas until I thought of this.... but I need to prove that it effects at least 50,000 people worldwide! Any ideas?

Thanks! -Kyrian-

How many people registered to this site?

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Do You ever Question Your life? Do You ever wonder Why? Do you ever see in Your dreams, All the castles in the Sky??

Ahhh, Kyrian, you do set some hard tasks. 50,000 people worldwide? Have you thought about poi & staff and the impact it has when people take the skills overseas when they are travelling (usually backpacking). Check out the India report thread for info on how it has impacted on local markets & what products they sell.

It might give you a starting point.

R

Hmmm.....interesting point.
Upon first seeing the subject header, my immediate reaction was "it doesn't it only affects the person doing it"
But after thinking about that, i realised i was wrong.

Perhaps think about the spread of fire twirling into western culture from our polynesian freinds.
And maybe on a smaller scale, the effect one fire twirler in a small communtiy can have.
e.g. when i first saw fire twirling in the flesh, it was a freind who bought a staff off some freinds. In the space of about five weeks, our town went from having 0 twirlers to about 7.

Cheers
APB

Sheffield's knee deep with spinners and twirlers. You can't move for them. It's probably not so many it just sems like a lot.

I think you would have to look at it from three areas, the glowstick scene, the hobbyist fire swinging scene and the professional performer scene.

These all blur into each other quite a lot, but at least it is somewhere to start...

In NZ it's defintely a great fringe hobby that is seriously impacting youngsters who might not otherwise enter into the circus art scene...

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Charles (AKA INFERNO)

newdolbel@hotmail.com
http://juggle.co.nz/fire/fire.html

a friend of mine was watching a tape of me twirling (poi) and made up a theory: (he said that i look like an atom-electrons and stuff flying around me) so he said that what if the world was made of tiny people all doing poi? what if those where the real building blocks of the universe?!
i found it kinda neat...

Hey Acid, that is soo neat and original! =P
you could go on to teach atomic theory to secondary school kiddies.
well,...
atomic theory or drug prevention, depending on your take of it

I can see the circus thing having some good branches, that is at least mostly international.... anyone have any further ideas on that, or where i coudl get some info? thanks guys!

I heard somewhere that you can use the internet to find stuff out. Aparently they have these things called search engines. Where you can put in keywords and it searches out stuff for you. It was only a rumour though. So don't hold me to it.....

*realises people are going to think he's being nasty, and so, goes off to hide under the table until the shelling lets up....*

but for the disclaimer i would have thought you were being nasty, you have an, uh, sarcastic streak about you? No i am not so dumb as not to know to use search engines but when i don't have a good idea what i want out of them they usually don't give me much.... garbage in, garbage out.....

And the internet also has BB's and chat rooms, which are also another great avenue for finding information.

NOW, WHERE THE H*LL WOULD A BB ON FIRESPINNING BE TO ASK QUESTIONS ON????

Hmmmmmmm...........?

(Hides under the table with C@ntus, unitl he realises it is Cantus he is hiding from when he get hit in the back of the head with a shoe)

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Charles (AKA INFERNO)

newdolbel@hotmail.com
http://juggle.co.nz/fire/fire.html

I'm trying to give up smoking. That's my only excuse for being a tad sarcastic right now.

But, mostly it's this medium, with which we choose to communicate, that causes the problem.

When I type stuff it's usually meant with a kind of jovial, chirpy bounce (anyone who's ever actually spoken to me in real life will attest to how silly and friendly my sense of humour is. I tend not to be nasty to people). But a lot of my intention is lost in the writing.

You can't see my wry grin, the playful sparkle in my eyes or hear the chuckle that accompanies the post. Lots of people misenterpret my postings as nasty (Kinudin wrote a poem to the effect).

Occassionally I do make posts that are intended to be a bit harsh though. This is due to there being one or two people on this site that really annoy me. And these are usually when something has been said about someone that i think is unfair, people are fighting or something downright stupid has been said. But these events are few and far between. And you ain't done nowt to annoy me yet kid.

So sorry if I seem harsh sometimes. I don't mean it (unless I do ).

I can't offer any real help with your project as it stands as I still don't understand what you want.
But if you can give me a clear idea. I will gladly trawl through the search engines for you and find information for you. Clear out the shite and give you the decent stuff.
I have all the patience in the world for this kind of thing.

If you want my help, just ask.

Seriously.

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C@ntus

Music grows in the rose, rock and the rain and the blowing snowstorm,
Everything seems to sing, everywhere I go,
I say 1, 2 play me do,
Let me sound as sweet as you,
Play me wide, play me long,
Let me be your song.

Coming from the irish side of the world i can safely say that poi has changed quite a few peoples lives (including mine)..... i went to glastonbury two years ago and fell in love with the beauty of poi in action but was a gutless coward an failed to take up the fantastic passtime until very recently since then i have changed alot, i can't tell you how cause i'm not quite sure yet but when i find out i'll be sure to keep you posted..... i think it's having similar effects on many others here too cause it's popularity is increasing every day!

sally.

i think most people can see that almost all of your posts are jovial cantus, you shouldn't be so paranoid. although a times you are so picky with the smallest of things. but thats cantus isn't it??

good luck with the smoking.

I attest to the chirpy thing

If we got all the spinners/poiers in the wrold together, or spinning would surely SURELY have some sort of effect on the earth spinning on it's axis.... isn't that the case? I'm sure in the Guiness bk of records they got loads of people to spin round like in a field or something, and it changed the rate that the earth revolved at for a split second. Surely if that happened, you could definitley prove spinning had a huge effect on the whole of the world.
*Dibs hits herself with the shoe Cantus hit himself with earlier* "Shut up Dibs!"
I tried.

lol cantus i bet i could do a better job searching too if i knew what i wanted. I am going to keep trying anyhow but i would love help if you are serious about the offer... Basically thinsg are as follows. One of my projects for contemporary issues has to focus on an international issue, (10% of my class grade) and my teacher finally wound up saying in order for it to count as an international issue it had to be international, effect at least 50,000 people, and either there had to be a US opinion on it or i had to come up with a really good reason why the US should have an opinion on it. I'm trying to make something about fire-twirling fit those catagories, so basically, i'm fishing for ideas and sources for info.

btw as unhelpful as it was the earth spinning thing was still funny dibs.

And i understand about the tone thing i haev a friend who does that and people still take his words too seriously sometimes...
Hope i don't ever do anything to cause you to want to be mean to me -Kyrian-

If you have a great grasp on world economies, you could show how the artistry helps to contribute to a larger picture of performers and buskers over the world. Some get paid for doing it and use it to feed their kid *coughPelecough*. Some make enough money off of it to supplement their lifestyles. Some get little to no compensation, but people will come to a show, and pay to see them as part of the eye candy (raves). All of them use products that have to be purchased, and have an impact on the consumption of some of those products. Some products are even specifically made or targeted at these performers. There are even people out there who make a living or a hobby out of providing these products for these performers. Like Malcolm. I'm sure he would be delighted to give an interview (after his honeymoon!) which would give you an example of how the supply and demand works. And there is a whole slew of in-betweens.

We further a greater global community of performers. Poi spinners might not number 50,000, but I am sure we have a round us a performing sub-culture that might number a little bit more, and combined, I am sure we affect a crap-load of people through what we do. 1500 people standing around watching a performance by Tantien. Or how many people do you think go to Burningman to see the performers?

Hope that could give you a start to get the noodle going.

100% Liquid Idiot! On Tap. Bloop!

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I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here.

~~~Dance as if noone is watching!~~~
PLUR(RE) ---J---

I was going to hit myself with a shoe Dibs. You're mistaken. Charles thought I was going to hit him with one though.

Where in actuality, I was simply going to insert one of his own unicycles into him.....through his ear.....

Glowshow...with all that coughing I would think you have a cold!

To say that fire spinning has impacted 50,000 is too vague.
As an ex- English teacher and truthfully, to say something has had an international impact is really to say it has changed or done something significant and noticable on a global scale. Perhaps, and hopefully, this will be true in a few years but right now spinning has an amazing impact on a relatively small amount of people, most of whom are directly involved in some way.

Audiences are wowed by it certainly, but few are truly changed by it. To say it has had an impact on 50,000 audience members, well....there is no documented evidence on changes it has brought to them.

For performers and hobbyists, it has impacted thousands, yes, but not that many in the view of how big the world truly is.
Also, it has a different effect on everyone involved, which would take pages and years to really collect data that would be a truthful representation of all spinners involved.

Even looking at the economic standpoint, from peformers to those who sell the merchandise, still it only has an effect on those who are primarily involved. It helps the subculture economy, but that is about it.

None of these on their own can create a strong paper, and when put together it is more a sociological study of a facet of a subculture rather than it's impact on the world.

However, let's look at it from a socio-political nature. It is well believed that this art stems from the Maori traditional right? As well as from Polynesian ritual dances?
There are about 2 thousand people on this board. About 2 thousand more out there who spin who haven't heard of HoP.
Now, how many Maori and Polynesian traditionalists are there out there? Several thousand I would bet. Many of whom seem to have a problem with our incarnation of this art, and some who support it. So therefore you can present a well developed paper on the art and evolution of fire spinning as a subculture and how it effects those cultures from which it derrives.
In this way it does effect 50,000 people, ask the New Zealanders. This art reaches across the globe to thousands, but had humble beginnings in rhythm and ritual. Are we defiling it? Can the evolution be stopped? Why whould they want to stop the evolution? How is it effect the Maori and Polynesian: meaning, are fire performers taking away performance time and money from traditional performers? Is the name poi a misrepresentation of their cultural heritage, since it is believed that when people say the word it is associated with Maori, who don't do fire poi?
There have been discussions on this board of this very topic. I have read some news articles about it. Perhaps some of our NZ compatriots could help you with contacts to Maori people?
Just an idea.
Good luck!

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Pele
Higher, higher burning fire...making music like a choir...

http://www.pyromorph.com

that's a really awesome idea actually pele, i'll see what i can find...

yeah, what pele said...also might group stick swinging in with this(Hawaiian)... also, just this year i heard that on new year's eve in scotland there is a fire swinging ritual that's been going on for, well, longer than the sirkus has been around(anyone have furthur info on this one?)... possibly delve into the western public's increased awareness of ritual based cultures based upon consumer trend and link this somehow to the public's exposure to primitive based ritual? this might be too inconclusive, i don't know, just jammin...
keep groovin'....

Cantus good sir, I stand corrected. I am a fool. Forgive me for my mistakes.

I just did a quick search and found the following links about poi & Maori culture.. I didn't have time to really check them out, but I hope they can get you started!

http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/artsnz/maori.html

http://www.thekumara.com/nzculture/maoriculturalgroup.html

http://www.nzedge.com/media/

http://www.newzealandsites.com/society/maori/culture/

http://www.rotoruanz.com/rotoruanz/password/about_rotorua/maori_culture/

http://www.pacificislandtravel.com/new_zealand/about_destin/maori_culture.html

http://sepdata.virtualave.net/nz1.html

Sorry I didn't post them as links.. haven't figured out how to do that in this forum yet! (Silly newbie! )

If anyone knows anything about any of the sites I posted, please comment... I just found them be doing a search for poi, maori and tradition on Google, so I don't really know how reliable they are.

Good luck on your paper!

Super-silly newbie!!! They DID post as links!! How about that!?! :P

And Cantus... how will you ever stop smoking when you spin all that fire??

I'll be spinning at a party (mystic motion 2) in Pittsburg, Pa on april 12th. I've been told i'll be in a venue (when packed) that can hold 1000-1200 people on the main floor
and another 300-400 on the balcony above.

these numbers WILL be attending, this is a large party with huge DJ's!

i'm stoked, my first real gig!

Kyrian.. what is a "US opinion"??
Can the UK have one too??

Well since i'm in the US the US opinion is nesc. but the UK opinion could be the "international" part, so yeah that'd be cool....

I used up all the gas in my lighter on Saturday, TwirlGirl, trying to light one of my staffs. That's bound to help the cause. Don't you think?