PoiGeek

As we continue our exploration into the 7 Layer Dip, we’ll begin focusing on the height layer of the dip. Clearly the skills themselves are, of course, important, but one of the most impactful performances I ever witnessed with poi was a student who did, literally, 3 moves. The reason it was so impactful? Her passion, her presence, her authenticity and how she performed and danced in such an elegant and graceful way, using the poi as an extension of her body.

As she was dancing, she was expressing the music, making her poi patterns and body movements a natural expression of the music. Her movements embodied the song and the song came through her body and poi movements with grace, flow and ease. Part of what she and other artists bring to the dance that creates a more compelling experience for the audience is a contrast between what is being performed. No matter how awesome a skill looks, doing that same exact thing in the same exact way for the entire performance will not be that compelling to the audience.When looking at the height layer of the 7 Layer Dip, there are three concepts to consider:

• First there is the height of the poi movement relative to the body. For example, when doing a weave — be it a 2 beat, 3 beat, 5 beat, 7 beat, isolated, polyrhythmic or any other variation you can think of — the position of the hands can be anywhere in space relative to the body. Imagine the difference, visually, between watching someone performing the weave with their hands at their waist versus their hands over their head. Now imagine watching that artist move the hands from one position to the other. If you compare the image of someone changing the height of the weave during their performance next to someone else doing the same weave without changing the height of the movement, it is clear the artist who changes the height is creating more contrast and subsequently a more complex experience for their audiences to view.
• Second there is the height of the body itself relative to the performance space. For example, an artist could be in any number of positions including lying down, kneeling, squatting, bent over, standing up, on their toes and even jumping in the air. Each of these positions in space offers a different visual experience for the audience witnessing the performance and moving between each of these positions creates even more contrast for people watching — even if the performer is using the same weave pattern in each position. Once again, these variations allow the artist to create contrast to expand the impact of their performance without having to learn new tricks with the poi.
• Third, artists can combine the ideas of these first two concepts and focus on how to change the height of the movement relative to the body while the body is being held at varying heights. On a technical level, this can be much more challenging because the movement of the poi as the body is moving relative to the ground requires a greater level of precision than simply doing a move or changing the height of one’s body. However, combining these elements together also allows artists the opportunity to create more contrast for the audience which helps make the performance more interesting.

If you’re wondering how to integrate more height changes into your performance, try this technique:

• pick a move you can perform easily, say, the weave.
• practice standing in one place and moving the weave around relative to the body for 30 seconds.
• over the next 30 seconds, practice moving the body height while performing the same move, while keeping the trick in a comfortable position throughout.
• over the next 30 seconds, practice moving the body height while also moving the position of the move relative to the body.
• during each of these steps, discover what is most comfortable for you to do — your strengths — and what is least comfortable for you to do — your areas of development.
• as you practice, take 90 second intervals throughout your practice time to cultivate both your strengths as well as the areas of development.
• through time, you’ll be able to integrate these new ways of creating contrast into your performance, allowing you to expand your audience impact and repertoire.

Certainly it all starts with basic skills — butterflys, reels, buzzsaws, flowers and the ever popular mainstay of an artists repertoire, the weave. But what you can do with the moves themselves itself is endless in terms of variations. Consider the weave and how you might change the size of it, the height, the speed and how you move with it. Then vary the rhythm with which you present it and put some dramatic sprinkles on top and suddenly, you’ve got yourself something you never had before in terms of the visual impact.

As a very basic example, you can think of these ideas as the reason that the artist might get (and often does) applause simply for doing a backbend

in front of a crowd (especially a less educated and experienced crowd) while doing the weave or buzzsaw. That’s not to say that if you show it to another spinner they will see you doing anything other than a 3 beat weave, on a technical level, because the skill, regardless of presentation, is still the skill. That said, as important as a varied set of skills is, the ability to express those skills in various ways with a unique style is perhaps a higher degree of mastery than to simply be able to do the move itself.When considering your skills, remember these concepts:

• No matter how many tricks you can do, there are always more tricks to learn and in that thinking, it is not just this is why the skills are at the root/base of the pyramid. Even when you consider the basic concept of a flower, there are different directions in which you can do the flower, different planes upon which the flower can be performed and different numbers of petals you can create while performing the flower.
• Modification to skills are endless — that is, no matter how many ways you know how to do a move, there is another way to change it. There may be a different plane you can do the move within, a different timing you can apply or perhaps even a different type of isolation. Even if you consider the idea of an isolation itself, you can be doing a full isolation or a partial isolation and you can even apply the isolation with an asymmetric pattern. Consider that you can apply the isolation — a full isolation or maybe even a one quarter, half or three quarter isolation — to only a part of the move. This means something like a 2 beat weave can be fully isolated with the crossing beat of the pattern and not when the hand does not cross the body. You are really only limited in your technical options based on the amount of time you practice, your physical abilities and your imagination.
• While the skills are most fundamental, they are least significant in terms of you personally expressing your style as a dance performance artist. The move/trick/skill you know — say a 3 beat weave — is still a 3 beat weave, no matter who performs it. Creating your own style is about presenting that particular move in a way that uniquely defines your essence as a performer. In a sense, you can think of the dramatic presence as the unique essence of you as a performer and because it is the last thing you add to the technique, it is the smallest part and at the top of the pyramid.
• Even so, while the dramatic presence is the most significant element in creating your unique style, it is built on top of everything else, so continually evolving your repertoire of skills allows you to create dynamic performances that are in constant evolution. Remember that your style is differentiated and defined by the ways in which you explore everything from bottom to the top of the pyramid.
• Skill alone does not define an artist’s performance style. Put differently: anyone can learn a weave. How each artist performs that weave varies. Ultimately, performance style is a culmination of how you think, move, learn, evolve and express your being through your body through all layers of this dip and this is uniquely yours to bring to the world.