Here our hoopers are separated into teachers, performers, and hoop makers, and many of us fill all three roles.

Well-Rounded Teachers

Sadie

Sadie loves to help people surprise themselves, whether teaching in a classroom or on the street. Hooping is the quickest way she knows to turn grumpy urbanites into giggling buddies.

Hooping was a natural progression from belly dance, which she studied with Audra Simmons. Both forms share the hip opening, the complex layering of rhythms, the sparkle, and the community of women dancing together. Sadie has explored many forms of movement — yoga, Nia, capoeira — and can always be found experimenting with a new dance prop.

When she’s not teaching, performing, and answering emails, Sadie likes to eat local, bike,
blow bubbles, read popular science books, and train to be a mermaid.

Linseed

Linseed loves sharing hooping with humans! She views the hoop as a treasured tool – helping creativity unfold and arise. She loves witnessing hooping click for first time hoopers – folks who didn’t think they could. She delights in the expression of beginners who end up inventing new moves from what they first viewed as “mistakes.”

Linseed began hooping in the Toronto winter of 2008 and discovered what a valuable tool the hoop was to soothe the heart and connect to joy in darker and colder times. Since then, her hoop practice generally picks up in the winter. She is awed by the different mediums folks find to tell their stories and believes the hoop to be a great start in helping us remember we have a story to tell.

Linseed also teaches yoga at a very special studio called Kula. She can be found around town at farmers markets and playing with bike mechanics. Her favourite shape is a circle and favourite smell is root beer.

Mandy

Mandy loves hooping because of the mental and physical benefits, but more importantly, because she loves to dance! She is motivated by helping students to tap into their inner dancer.

Mandy has travelled all over the world with her hoops since the late 90′s. She first discovered hooping while DJing at an electronic music festival. She spotted some hula hoopers grooving in the field to her funky, high energy, booty-shaking house set and immediately bought a hoop and gave it a spin. Soon afterwards, she was offered a DJ position on a cruise ship where she shared her hoops with eager crew and passengers. When she arrived in Toronto in 2008, the hoop scene was in its infancy and Mandy jumped at the chance to join in! She found her hoop groove by combining her love of spinning hoops and spinning records.  A few years later her House Hooping class was born. House hooping is a combination of funky house music, dance steps, tricks and a whole lot of sweaty fun.

Outside of hooping, Mandy still busts out the beats in her home studio. She is an avid chef, nutritionista and traveller. Her positivity and high energy are infectious. Even if you have never considered yourself a dancer, Mandy will help you find your groove.

Elana

Elana Millman loves a good whirl. She started hula-hooping over 7 years ago with a hand-painted Balinese bamboo hoop and has not looked back since. Continuously inspired by the strength, coordination, confidence and joy she reaps from her hooping practice, she has been known to exclaim, “hooping is God!” and feels so honoured to teach her passion. Elana enjoys helping students get into their body, using her wellness background to guide them in a safe and supported way.

In her non-hoop life, Elana is a wellness therapist focusing on massage, energy work and holistic nutrition.  Her first book, Man on Top – How to be a better man, will be out soon.

Well-Rounded Performers

Mobot

Kiki La Fleur

Kiki LaFleur (aka Kirsten Harvey) has forever been involved in the arts.  She was born into a family of musicians and first stepped onto the stage at the age of 2! Now an actor, singer and dancer, she began her acting career studying Musical Theatre in Edmonton where she attended Grant MacEwan Theatre Arts. She spent 5 years in Edmonton performing in children’s musicals, touring shows across Alberta and B.C., and performing in the Edmonton Street Performers Festival. Kiki has spent many summers traveling across Canada touring with the Fringe Festival, both as an actor and a busker.

Since moving to Toronto in 2008, she has found a home amidst the growing hoop community as she pursues her career as an actor and playwright. Recently Kiki wrote and produced critically acclaimed show, The Cat of Kensington, for the 2010 Toronto Fringe Festival. Kiki is now in her final year of a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at Ryerson University.

Kitty Kerosene

At age 18, Kitty ran away to join the circus and has never looked back!

Kitty has been performing with fire since 2003 and got into hula hooping after meeting Sadie in a Toronto park in 2007. These days she performs with hoops of all sizes, spinning lightning-fast mini hoops,  sharing a slow groove in a giant tandem hoop and everything in between. In addition to fire hoops, she uses flaming poi, staff, double batons, fire fingers, fans, floating wands and more!

Non-flame-y superhero skills include being an accounting whiz and performing makeup artistry duties for film/TV, photography and events.  In her “spare” time she also enjoy assembling IKEA furniture, trying to find ways to avoid doing laundry, knitting (which really just creates more laundry) and  solving kakuro puzzles.

Elves build the beautiful hoops that keep us spinning

Grayden

Grayden is a defiant hoop elf with a keen sense of colour and balance and is the master of crisscross taping. He also fixes bikes, designs knitwear, and hunts for herbs.

Zia

Zia is an art model, bondage ropemaker, hoopmaker. She loves dance and music and movement and making things and exploring the physical world. And she loves crafting
things that bring pleasure and happiness.