England Poi Workshop Tour with Charlie
The teachers:
Asaf “Poiboy” More:
I have been spinning and juggling since 2003, and have since developed a strong passion for poi and circus in general. In recent years I’ve been getting more involved in the global community by sharing video tutorials on many technical moves, and blogging everything I play with on my tech blog. My mission right now is to travel the world, teaching and inspiring others, giving back to the community that helped me develop my art to what it is today. After meeting Ronan in 2009, I started learning contact poi and looking for new ways to manipulate poi, using many different influences – Clubs, Contact Juggling, Staff, Rings, and Kittens. I’ve also been focused very heavily on footwork, dance, and performance for the last year or so and my latest routines involve a lot of dancing, jumping, and moving around the stage.
Charlie Hessions:
I’m Charlie (A.K.A: 2cBeatnikk), a Manchunian poi wielder who’s been hanging out in London for a long time. After a couple of very brief flirtations with poi I began spinning around the crimbo of 2006/07. Since then I’ve hit myself a lot, hit myself less and then tried to hone my own flow. I love techy moves but my main focus at the moment is putting them together in a graceful and expressive manner. I’ve always loved creative expression and physical exertion as separate entities, since learning poi I have begun to explore many fields where these two work together – it seems to be good for my spirit.
I also have a great deal of interest in the Brain and how skill toys such as poi, CJ, Juggling etc. change it.
The Workshop:
Me and Charlie are teaming up to give you workshops in 6 different cities in England, in each city we will do one 4 hour workshop, covering a wide range of subjects. All workshops are intended for all levels as we can teach a lot about all of our subjects, so both complete beginners and poi gurus will have something to learn. If you’d like to go deeper into the subjects at one of the workshops, you can take it again in a different city and time.
Curriculum:
In each workshop there will be 4 lessons, 50 mins each, with 10 minute breaks for free practice and rest in between.
- Poiboy: Throws – Throws are really fun and fit almost everywhere, learn the many different flavors of throws, isolated, antispin, float, half beats, and body throws are only some of what I’ve been exploring with throws and what I can teach.
- Charlie: Flowers – This workshop will teach all sorts of different flowers, for both people who’ve never done flowers, and people who know countless variations.
- Charlie and Poiboy: Contact poi – Learn how to roll your poi and your string around your body, and how to borrow moves from staff, clubs, and contact juggling and convert them to poi.
- Charlie and Poiboy: Body Movement: Possibly the most important aspect of poi, or any juggling, is body movement and performance. Whether you’re performing in front of 1,000 people, or your family, knowing how to perform and how to communicate to the crowd using your body is very important. Learn how to use your body and stage to properly present your spinning, and learn how to perform as a group.
Where?:
August 26th: London – No.7 Fountayne Rd. Unit 28, London N15 4QL - Directions from Tottenham Hale Underground Station
August 28th: Cambridge – Hills Road Sports Centre
September 9th: Bristol – The Artspace Lifespace (Studio 2), Silver Street, Bristol BS1 2PY
September 10th: Birmingham
September 12th: Manchester – Antwerp Mansion, Kent Rd W, M14 5RF, Manchester, Greater Manchester.
Notes and important stuff:
- Workshops are for everyone who knows the basics. To learn the basics, I recommend Playpoi.com’s beginner series
- Even if you know some of what we teach in a workshop or a specific subject, we can help you learn even more variations on that move and also how to beautify it.
- If you would like to learn Contact poi, I recommend getting Pendulum poi from HOP. I have a few spare sets for the workshops, but you should have your own so you can keep learning later. Home of Poi – 80mm Pendulum Poi
