We have created a variety of object manipulation workshops which were presented at different festivals and retreats. These are available to host at your event! Please contact us to arrange workshops in your area. New workshops can be added and presented material can be customized to meet the specific needs of the event.

Wildfire Retreat August 2012
Three Section Staff Workshop at Wildfire Retreat (8-20-12 @12:10pm) Instructor: Potter Dee

Description: The Three Section Staff (San Jie Gun), is a stunning mix of staff, poi, nunchucks, whip, clubs, and it’s own interesting geometries, the 3-section is really just the coolest. One of the classic weapons of China, the the san-jie-gun is as flexible on the stage as it is on the battlefield. We will cover a bit of history, construction, and a number of basic and intermediate moves. With a few months of practice, you will have a one bad ass piece of equipment to add to your routine. This is a weapon and it has a steep learning curve. Long pants, sleeves, shoes, hat, are suggested. You will get bruised and knocked around a bit during this class. I will try to bring a few extras, but it would be best for people to bring their own 3-sections. Email me for info on making/buying a good/cheap one.

Prerequisites: An understanding of how to handle a staff is necessary and some poi background would be helpful. A basic 3-section can be built from oak dowels, eye screws, and quicklinks. Make sure the middle section is wider then your shoulders.

Workshops offered at Sirius Rising 2012 at Brushwood Folklore Center:

Off – Body Hoop Dance * Instructor: Gillian Tunney

“Off – Body” hooping is when the hoop is no longer around the core of your body, instead its up over your head, being passed around your body, or hooping with your hands and arms in the vertical plane. We will be covering a lot of the basic off body moves like hand hooping in different planes, weaves, the helicopter, flips, jump ins, jump outs, we can even get into some isolations, body rolls, elbow hooping, and most importantly, we will learn how to put it all together. I can tailor this class to the level of the students and if someone has something specific they want me to go over, let me know! Bring a hoop that is smaller and more lightweight. We will have hoops for people to use.

Hoop Making / Hoop Dance Skill Share ( craft, movement ) Instructor: Gillian Tunney

Come learn how to make and decorate a hoop. We will have different types of tubing, and gaffer,duck tape, colored gaffer tape, fabric scraps,ribbons and fancy sparkly tape( for additional fee ). You are welcome to bring your own decorative materials to experiment with. Afterwards we will have an open hoop jam / skill share and i can provide tips and instruction based on student requests. If you are not interested in making a hoop, but would like to learn or share please bring your own and participate in the open jam. Materials fee varies based on the materials used: Practice hoops range from $8-12 and hoops using sparkly tapes $20-30

Intro to Staff Manipulation * Instructor: Gillian Tunney

We’ll cover all of the basics of Staff / baton, both concepts and tricks to give you a foundation so you can begin a wonderfully rewarding life full of spinning a stick and feeling totally awesome. If you’ve never spun a staff before or already have some experience, this class will prepare you with demonstration and discussion of planes, transitions, and beats as we cover figure-eights (2 beats), around-the-world, 2-hand spins ( rotors ) , tosses, and some introductory contact moves like elbow and neck rolls. Please bring a staff of any size if you have one and limited number of extras will provided.

Fire Dancing Safety Instructor: Potter Dee

From first time fire dancers to seasoned veterans, everyone could use a refresher course in fire safety to keep you on top of your game. We will cover regulations, fuels, first aid, and techniques to keep fire spinning safe. Attendance is mandatory for anyone wanting to fire dance at Sirius and identifying bracelets will be distributed to attendees.

Rope Dart Instructor: Potter Dee

So you want to spin fire but don’t have the coordination for poi? Want to be able to defend yourself from unruly robber mobs? Look like a bad-ass ninja at a moment’s notice? Want to take your poi to the next level and involve your lower body? Well have we got a class for you! Rope-dart is pretty much a heavy thing on the end of a rope you swing about to keep away enemies, but with exploration, it becomes a tool of dance and beauty. We will cover what scraps of history there are, construction of various types, and then instruction in the basic use of the dart and some theory to expand it into dance. No loose clothing like sarongs and skirts. Pants and shoes prefered.

* note: parts of this workshop description were sourced from Wildfire website