Boleadoras - cousins to poi?

Alrighty, whilst watching Cirque du Soleil last night, there were these two women performing with boleadoras, what looked like really long poi. They were long strings with small wooden balls at the end, and instead of just spinning them like poi, they were rythmically hitting the balls on the ground, and step dancing at the same time. Kind of like a poi version of Stomp.
I did some research on them, and all I could find out was that they're like an ancient form of lasso that they primarilly used to hunt ostrich or something. My sister said she saw some thing on them that said they were the original origins of poi, but I'm not sure about that.
Anyways, they were neat. Anybody know anything about them?

I'll give it a shot and others can clairify. One is not the origin of the other rather it's what's called simutaneous geneous. Poi (as I understand it) is also the name of that Hawaian starchy paste that they eat. It's actually a root that they need to pound into a paste. To do this they would attatch the root to a sort of rope and swing it in to a rock over and over. Then they realized that you are more balanced if you do two at a time kind of like carring buckets of water. Then the art of spinning came form the boredom of this task.

The boleadora or bola (sp?) was used as a weapon for a long time. It's spun and thrown at the feet of your prey, it would wrap arround multiple times and trip it. So the boleadora dance originated from a tool much like poi and trick roapers.

Hope my viewpoint helps.

Could this be what your talking about???

Whilst Bolas and Boleadoras have the same origin, it's not quite the same...



Respectively



I would like to point out to everyone that these are EXTREMELY dangerous! If you EVER attempt to take one in your hand - BE CAREFUL! Hitting yourself with Boleadoras will make you yearn having hit yourself with heavy duty monkey fists instead...

Just thought I'd share...

Went to see Cirque Surreal the other week with Burnt Toast...

They had a Boleadoras act. He was awesome.

to look at, it's just weaves and windmills. but the guy was spinning in polyrhythm, and stamping his feet to a really intricate and funky rhythm, that I was blown away.

I admit, I looked at them before and thought: Boring. weaves and windmills, and they hit the floor. but then I heard a good rhythm played with them, and my mind was changed. I love when that happens.

I don't think I have the skill to play them well at all, even after learning loads of poi spinipulation (Yoink term from Ronan ) the rhythm, timing and energy in a (good) boleadoras performance is at a deceivingly high level.

Ed approves.