Music isn’t the only thing that people enjoy at festivals.
The atmosphere is half of the experience. There are so many cool different flow
arts that people do, and you can just sit down, relax and watch someone hoop,
glove, or do poi. Honestly, gloving is my favorite. Probably because it’s all
about your hands and reminds me of the sleight of hand skill that people have
when it comes to performing magic tricks. While at Electric Forest I got my own
pair and started learning how to glove after I got home. It’s pretty cool and I
picked it up pretty quickly, but ever since the festival I haven’t had anyone
to perform for, so I don’t always glove whenever I’m at home.
If you aren’t
feeling the whole up in your face style of flow art then you’d probably like
hooping or poi. They both are really fun to just sit down on a blanket and
watch someone perform. It’s really relaxing. Hooping is more of a girl thing to
do, but if you’re a guy who wants to hoop, don’t let anyone stop you.
Poi isn’t
a single gendered art and is really cool when the performer is really good at
contact poi.
When we were at Electric Forest we had at least one person for
each art. So it was really cool because we got to sit around camp and watch
them practice. Everyone was really supportive. I, for one, am really shy when
it comes to performing or doing something in front of a group. When I wasn’t
really good at gloving, I didn’t want to try to do it in front of people at
camp. I just thought I was bad and that what I did didn’t look good. Eventually
I got the hang of it when I got home and watch some tutorial videos. Now I
think it’s really fun and can’t wait to go to more festivals so I can show off
some of the skill I have. Sometime soon my brother wants to get his own poi set
so he can learn. This atmosphere compares to what I’ve been told Woodstock was
like. That is pretty cool to me because my dad was growing up during that time
so it just feels like I’m going back to my dad’s age. So the music is pretty
great and all, but relaxing and watching flow art really adds to the
experience.
