Performance Moves vs. Techy-moves

I totally agree with blue there, tech moves for staff are a must for performance, i think standard staff looks really booring but contact never fails to get a "look at that crazy guy, lets watch to see if he burns himself.... omg! how did he do that!"

t

um.
no.

robert heart is pretty technical. just cause we don't approve of his attitude or like his style doesn't mean he isn't pretty good.

R

err... that 4 hyperloops in a row before they realize comment was mine... i should probably have added that once they have noticed, it's all they want to see for a bit. one guy (non spinner) even said 'wow, it makes like, a little hyperloop inside!'
But then there have been 'Are you doing that deliberatly? Show-off.' type comments, so you don't win em all.

--Ben

Boy I could write all day on this thread. But I'll keep it quick. In juggling there is the same problem. A clown can juggle 2 balls and an apple and eat the apple. And Jason Garfield can do a 12 ball falsh. Who do you think the crowd will like best? The clown always wins and Jason is a very grumpy man. But, in contrast, Jason has his own show lets say on a cruse line, and the clown is stuck doing birthday parties.

And man I gotta defend fire The only reason I do poi is for the fire. How I perform is with LOTS of fire. It's double dipping if you will. One, the Crowd loves it, two it lights me up so you can see the techincal things I'm doing. Tie yourself in a knot with light sticks in the dark and no one knows. Do it lit up glowing red, then the big fire and the tech come together. Don't get me wrong, I don't do fire just for the crowd, I do it for me. It's my meditation, it's cleansing, it's like home and warm apple pie. I spin fire all by myself sometimes (not safe I know), but sharing my intimate relationship with fire with a crowd and encourage them to do the impossible in their own lives is fun too.

P.S. I think Robert Heart should put a wistle in his mouth while he performs. (well some of you will get it)

Och... Rob!!! I am offended! No-one doing any techy moves in the South Island huh.... now I know my airwraps, hyperloops and isolations can be sketchy but ... really, tut tut

Didn't have enough time to read through all the replies too carefully so sorry if I don't make sense.. but I have found doing airwraps quite impressive to the audience.. and if they don't respond I often say... hey look at this.. I'm doing it on purpose !!

Isolations always get a good reult. And I always find my throwing of staves get a rather ooohhhed response. But.... ya know what... mostly for audience.. speed seems to be the one. I did a small show at a party the other night... asked my flatmate what he liked the most he said.. "the one where u spin one staff above the head and the other in front".. I said "oh, when I am going quite fast" he said .. "yeah". I asked my mum and dad when they watched me... mum said "when u do single staff behind the back and around the front repetitively" I said "you mean when I am going really fast?" she said "...yeah" It amazes me how much general laymen like speed.... maybe I don't need to learn any other tricks....

Jo

[side note: please insert the phrase 'In my opinion' as you see fit, I assumed people did this but evidently not ]

You're damn right about most audiences liking the speed of a set.

But I get by far the the best results when I spin poi at such a rediculously slooooooowwwwwww speeeeeeeed that they should be falling from their orbits, people are like "What the F..." It Also allows me to spin 'Techy' moves that normal people can actually follow.

I didn't ever think of 'Isolations' as 'moves' until Drew told me I was doing them. I still don't consider them moves. They are a completely separate movement which I superimposed upon every other pattern. They allow far greater control of the timing of the poi and by combining them with Long Arms you can keep time to super slow beats. Alternatively you can use them to do super quick time. I consider the ability to isolate essential for keeping precise time to music, very useful in performance, and allows for greater 'Dynamic Range' for your set.

Poiple think of all this 'Plane Breaking' (or as I prefer to call it 'Plane Tweeking') as useless Techy stuff I reckon This kinda thing will be completely Fundamental umongst poistas in a few years.

I'm interested to hear what poiple mean when they say 'Techy'. I mean, there must have been a time when no one had ever done a 5 beat weave before. The friends of the first person ever to try it may have been like 'Oh that's Soooo Techy, you'll never be able to work it cleanly into a set'. Now a 5 Beat Weave is Fundamental. Likewise nowadays with a 5 Beat Butterfly Weave (5-TTN with turns). For me this is fundamental and looks completely bonkers, I still find it a bit risky in performance but then who cares, it looks phenomenal, especially when you over exaggerate the bendy arm movements. A certain 'crowd pleaser', even if they are sat more than 10 feet away.

I guess that developing hybrid poi notation is 'Techy'. But it's no different from what happened years ago in juggling, and the benefits were enormous for everyone, not just the Techys that developed it. Just think of the benefits to choreography.

I certainly don't think that a set must have high tech moves to be fabulous. Equally a super tech performance can look really bad, it's just all about the balance of the Emotion and the Intellect.

m

[EDIT] OMG, this was written after Poipoipoi,s post on page one, with all the quotes from Pele's. This is like 20 posts late in the thread. Please bear in mind I was a lttle riled at waht I percieved to be an insult or 2 to Pele. Please look further down the thread for my more considered response [EDIT}

In defense of Pele and all of like opinions:
Firstly we all need to see the difference between twirling for others as a style or "your way" and that of performing. Of course performing is for others, that's what you're paid for.
Telling us all what people have said of her performance is not ego. She's relating to us that less-tech moves get awesome responses. not being keen to twirl in front ofpeople all the time is more to do with knockers taking away from your buzz from spinning. You just don't need knockers telling you that your spinning needs something. For the record, "flow" is down to movement memory, and is part of your phychological construct of your body and the space it's in, than a mind outside your body. It's a very real neurobiological process that we develop by twirling.
Making a show interesting to the audience does at all make it uninteresting to the performer. Saying that this meens it's not interesting to yourself is missing the point of pro shows. It's for money. Sounds mercenary but I'd rather twirl for a living than get dusty every day in the factory. A bad day twirling is better than a good day at work!
Plenty of people miss things in shows. Anyone can argue against a generalisation. In a crowd, some may have ADD, soem may just be hard to excite, some may act too cool for school, some may not watch because of stereotypes about "arty types", babies will fall asleep of their own accord, polynesians may be offended at percieved abuse of their culture and some people may simply have poor eyesight but still love what they can see, especially the bold movements instead of flatfoot boffining. There are so many reasons why a load of people will not catch just what it is that you do with your wrists. you can't watch every body part in slo-mo at once. The vast majority of people have never seen fire twirling in real life. Do a survey at the supermarket checkout or do a doorknock and ask how many poi moves they could name. Sounds humiliting to me.
Super Techy moves, DO bore some people. Categorically denying this may be ignorance, but it may be something else. Could it be that some HOP members are simply defending a more techy style by defending against any percieved attack, by retaliating with rhetoric? Good grief!
I can tell you that a performance set of 5BT stuff with only hyperloops, releases and UTL would probably get a milder response from an avarage civilian crowd than simple buzzsaws wraps and speed work, let alone 1 fire breathe. That's in my experience anyway. Maybe if the only people who see you twirl are twirlers themselves (or groupies) then you'd get a better response, but that's the point of the discussion, isn't it?
Let's give Pele the credit she's due for her contribution to twirling worldwide. She's been a pro for years, been a fair and supportive moderator to many twirlers and her articles have likely been the greatest contribution by 1 person to fire safety worldwide. Not bad eh?
Thank you all for your responses but please be aware of how they impact on a person.

well,

"flatfooted boffining" is not what we are talking about, I agreethat someone standing still doing tech stuff is booring, unless its coleman, where the body dont matter and its al about the poi, but cole id beutifull, not impressive.

The point many peaple are making here is that tech donst have to be flatfooted, it can be just as dynamic as everything else, its only another way of manipulating poi, and all ways are valid in performance. To just do 5bt with airwraps would be booring, but if you can do that you can also do everything else, and what performer is going to ignore most of thier reptoir?

performance is about dynamics, narrative and spectical, tech is about the movements you make. They are two diffrent things, that are not mutually exclusive, but but just diffrent aspects of the spinning experance. A tech 'move' isntantly becomes a perfomance move as soon as you perform it. how you present that to make it intresting is up to you, I dont think there are any moves that cant be aprechaited by a layman with the right conditions. Obviously in some situations subtle bodymovements will get lost, but in others they wont. To ignore techy stuff (especially if its solid enough to perform) because you think its 'boring' just shows a lack of imagination.

"Do a survey at the supermarket checkout or do a doorknock and ask how many poi moves they could name. Sounds humiliting to me."

I dont think this has any bearing on the debate, go to the checkout and ask peaple if they know what poi are and most will draw a blank. whats your point? peaple wouldent do tech moves if it didnt make the poi do something different.

I think there is a littel defensiveness of tech stuff going on, but its quite justified, because we put a lot of hours into finding diffrent things to do with poi, and for someone else to say "no point, looks terrible for performance" when we know that how it looks is down to presentation, not the move. a 3 beat weave can look [censored] if you do it facing away from the auidence.

finnally "Thank you all for your responses but please be aware of how they impact on a person."

this is a debate, not a slagging match, something that should be perfectly obviouse. we are not taking it personally, we are just giveing very sutable counter arguments. This isnt about feelings, its about perfomance verses tech. we cannot help it if out counter arguments are seen as an attack by the peaple to whom thier directed, because we must make thoes arguments. If its taken personally well im sorry, but its not the intended point, we simply want to add to an intresting discussion in which we all have some experance. Nobody is Dissin Pele, well, apart from calling her a wuss

T

I used to think exactly this way about really difficult moves in both juggling and poi, that they were just for nerds, because they always looked rubbish and were only interesting to people in the know.

But then I was with a bunch of people at Glastonbury and I saw Jay Gilligan doing juggling and everyone was totally loving it. He was doing stupid stuff with ten million balls and bizarre spins and loads of stuff that I know is incredibly difficult and the non-knowing audience thought it looked amazing and totally more interesting than any juggling they'd seen before.

I think the difference between that and your average performer doing difficult stuff is that he was incredibly stylish and had everything really down well. I think a lot of technical performers sacrifice flow for discrete incredibly difficult moves. Personally I think for performance flowing movements should be valued way above technical tricks, but if you can do both, then you look even better.

I've been doing a little bit of juggling recently and with 3 balls I've always been able to just kind of relax and do lots of different things without thinking, but 4 balls has always seemed a bit disjointed. But now I've learnt 5 balls and I've suddenly discovered that I can now do a similar thing with 4 balls, without having to really think hard about exactly what 'trick' or 'move' I'm going to do. Her what lives with me actually asked me to do some 4 ball juggling the other day, whereas before, only 3 ball stuff was at all interesting to watch.

Joe

I poi because it makes me feel free. It takes me to a place that nothing else ever has, and the more moves I learn (techy or not), the more I can flow.

When I perform, I let the music take me where it wants to go. If this means slow pendulums and swinging at the sides, cool! If it means butterfly weaves and wraps, cool!

So I guess my point is complexity doesn't equal quality, but knowing a variety of moves makes the experience more fun and lets you express more through your movements.

Gosh, I Poi!

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Personally I think for performance flowing movements should be valued way above technical tricks, but if you can do both, then you look even better.

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At Last, someone who has hit the nail on the head

If you can do both they it's got to be better??? Or am I completely insane.

[Probably, but I still cling on the the last threads of reality ]

I doesn't *HAVE* to be better if you can do both, because there's something unique and cool about simplistic nature of non-tech moves. Sometimes it's more visually appealing to see smooth, slow, non-techy movements. I find that if people watch technical spinning, they have to concentrate harder than watching non-tech spinning. Sometimes you need a simple concept that's easy to grasp to fully see the beauty in it, and an audience needs non-tech to break up the "ahhhhh what's going on" factor.

Really nicely put MilleniuM *doffs cap* My thoughts exactly

Millenium: I agree that simple patterns can be extremely elagant,

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Sometimes it's more visually appealing to see smooth, slow, non-techy movements.

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...and sometimes it's more visually appealing to see smooth, slow, techy movements.

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and an audience needs non-tech to break up the "ahhhhh what's going on" factor.

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Yep, just as they need tech movements to add a little spice.

It's all about the balance.

m

I agree, the crowd just need to be able to watch without concentrating and become lost in the fire. Since I got a video phone and can record myself I realise that no matter what weaves I move in and out of it's always (almost) a perfect circle cuz I keep my wrists joined all through the 3/5 beat be it back or forwd high or hugging the ground. And now I realise that while my mate is real techy and shifts constantly from move to move why some folks prefer my style cuz it's easy on the eye. Mix it with a bit of madness in the middle and all is good!

humm, as for the "ahh whats going on factor"

dosnt really apply, cos teh aidence dosnt really know whats going on with simple moves either, its all about patterns of light and body postures for them, so for example if your doing flowers with airwraps the auidence sees a big circle with smaller circles around the edge and then an even smaller circle in the middle, they dont kneed to know, or ever have to wonder how you did it, its just a beutifull pattern. Likewise with wraps, one wrap will change the direction but a series of high speed wraps makes an amazing combination of diffrent directions and creats the illusion of the poi swapping, as well as the percived danger of bouncing burning things off your body, peaple love this stuff.

I dont know what your idea of tech moves lookes like, a tech move is not deefined as 'something that makes essentialy the same circles in a more difficult way', its defined as 'a difficult movement with poi'. Admittedly there are tech moves that fall into this catogory, but thats actually the exeption rather than the rule. I agree with poipoipoi in that if done smooth and clean the audence shouldent really be able to tell whats difficult and whats not, it should all look natural and easy and pretty. Untill you can do all your moves with that fluidity yes its gonna look a bit stilted compared to the normall stuff, but if youve got it down it should be able to flow just as well.

its already been agreed that performance is about dynamics, and the addition of other harder moves simply increases thoes dynamics, which cannot be bad for performance.

T

I think we're all in agreement here, but don't actually realize it

I completely agree with everything you've said Nx and Poix3... when I'm spinning for audiences it usually consists of both spinners and non spinners alike, and even if it was all non spinners watching, I'd still throw in some techy stuff, because you're right: You need spice. The audience will frankly get bored if they know what you're doing the entire time, you need them to feel an array of emotions, and confusion/amazement are necessary.

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...and sometimes it's more visually appealing to see smooth, slow, techy movements.

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Agreed. In my opinion, flowers are the most beautiful poi move I've seen, and they're quite techy. They are also the most fun for me

Ah, I feel all warm and fuzzy at all this agreement.

On the whole, it's whoever is watching that determines the reaction you'd get. It could be anyone from martians to the most experienced poi jedis. Like everything, it's all in context.
Also there are different circumstances too. Showing off to friends can be simply funny, but to strangers it's outright tacky. Busking or gigging should be about experessing yourself in a way the audience can get into. In the same vein as some have said, in your own style basic or not and with flow. If you've got complicated moves down, then do them, but in the context of showmanship, it's good to let the audience know that you may burn to death in the attempt (lie!) There's a conundrum too with making moves look really easy, which can make the audience believe it is, and therefore nowt special. But that's for some people.

There is also teaching, which of course you are deliberately trying to make it easy as for a person to copy directly. This is vaguely related to perf. vs. tech. cause it's easier to teach a basic move as for tech, you need to have basics down. People learn in different ways too, and the best teachers can adapt the teaching to the student. I find this one of the most satisfying aspects of twirling. Unless it's new years and people are being rude to me and hogging my gear



I can do some reasonably techy things, though I've yet to get into airwraps yet, and I can fountain fast as you like, but I'm also a cheeky bastard so when I busk i like to throw in some clowny stuff like gratuitous bum wraps or a near-miss in the nads just to get a laugh. I find that it's worth a couple of bucks at least to include. Mind you, tits and arse always wins.
There's nothing wrong with editing your style for a purpose, yet a lot of folks seem to beleive in twirling for their own enjoyment only, which I think is awesome. As a poier, watching someone in the zone has to be one of the most joyful things I can do.

Now that there's peace, I might go and start some trouble in social