The workshop was spent doing a series of exercises including (my labels): wobble, body rolling, wobble-pops, wobbles to portals, portal turns, wildwest-whirlpool-portals, snap-flipping and iso-pops. Towards the end she also briefly demo-ed a CRAZY move transition between neck hooping to libra while bending forward, rolling the hoop across the back, flipping the body, doing another body roll and then jumping through the hoop. Nuts.

Brecken has an intriguing and totally original dance style. She works with contrast between 2 discernable elements: 1. While wobbling with loose knees and feet and an activated spine, she has this lazy-cool urbanesque way of turning her whole body like so it wobbles like a top moving through jelly. Meanwhile, her footsteps are almost staggering. She exudes Chicago-style machismo with slow, round, wandering explorations. Then it feels like she falls into form in the same way a jazz or modern dancer would with long extensions and engaged body leans. 2. She contrasts this stylized wobble-wander with precise isolation-pops which have extremely fast, linear verticals punctuated with low jumps. She exerts ridiculous control and creates exacting visual illusions. The hoop moves away from her and back in straight lines, as if floating, all as a result of super nimble wrist and hand movements. Brecken has the bravado of a jazz dancer/cowboy who swaggers into a salon in a super lazy way, creating a stylized illusion of almost being drunk, but then jumps into explosive action at lightening speed. Bad-ass.

I am PSYCHED for tonight's second class. There is still room for drop ins. Click here for information. Even though this workshop is labelled intermediate-advanced, I think any serious hooper in the city should be there even if they just paid to watch! We are so blessed to have her here live and in person. See you tonight...