WonderLab, Hudsucker Posse teach hoop dancing science

The math and science behind things can sometimes be easy to miss. Take the act of hula-hooping, for example.

Local hooping troupe The Hudsucker Posse explained the science of hooping for an outdoor audience Friday evening at WonderLab Museum of Science, Health and
Technology.

“Mostly it seems like an art because it’s a lot like dancing, but equally, it’s a science,” Carmela Senior, a dancer from the Posse, said.

The presentation looked like dance class, but sounded like a physics lecture.

“Centripetal force,” “kinetic energy” and “law of gravity” were terms used during the talk outside as five dancers performed several hoop dances in the museum’s garden area.

In the ring of Hudsucker “hoopers,” some are seasoned and skilled while others are new to the scene. But all of them bring different experiences to the stage.

Senior, who began hooping only a year and a half ago, started dance lessons when she was three years old. She did ballet in school, and she’s tried more daring forms, like fire dance.

But she said hooping gave her a way to interpret dance that she never before realized.
“I had never thought of dancing in a scientific way before,” Senior said. “But it makes sense. It’s exciting to see it from a different perspective.”

Outside the entrance of the building, parents watched children create paint “spin art” and get fitted for kid-sized hoops.

Laura Reynolds, who brought her three kids, said she enjoyed the work-out potential she saw in hooping.

“It’s a unique way to stay in shape and have fun at the same time,” she said. “(The kids are) really good at it.”

But although the dances the Posse churn out seem polished, Senior said they’re often not practiced.

“We watch each other and go off that, and that way it’s more fluid,” Senior said. “You’re not supposed to put a lot of thought into it. It’s really all about flow.”