Our End to 2013

So this post is a little bit later than planned. Unfortunately it took a little longer to find time to write it than expected. First off, happy New Year and we hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas.

The last few months of 2013 were fairly busy for us and were a lot of fun J

Kicking it off was the Wanganui festival of cultures. 7.30 am on the 5^th of October the first of us started to gather to get in to costumes and get creative with face paint. By everyone was in the car and off to Wanganui.

What a fantastical day. We had great weather, great people, a great crowd, and a wonderful time. We had a voodoo man with a diabolo and card tricks, a punk rock hooper, Peter pan and Tinkerbell doing adagio (aka people stacking), a mime, a ninja, a pink cat on stilts, an ice fairy with a contact ball, a guard with a staff, and warrior demon with a staff (which sound scarier than it was). We also had to wonderfully formally dressed ladies who came down to burn with us on stage.

Everyone’s costumes were amazing and everyone did a wonderful job on the day despite a few hiccups with the performance.

 

The next event we had was Manawatu Harvest Festival on the 19^th of October. The Harvest Festival is an event by the Sustainable Living Trust to promote the use of sustainable resources and leaving a better planet for future generations (more information about these guys can be found here: http://www.maifarm.org.nz/).

Once again the weather was absolutely brilliant for us which meant everyone had a great time. We had stilts, the rolla bolla, poi, staff, and we also welcomed some new characters to the show, The Flowers who were doing adagio and were definitely a crowd favourite.

This event was a first performance for quite a few of the people who came out with us and they did absolutely fantastically! Thanks to all of our performers the day ran smoothly and everyone loved us and we already have a few plans for next year.

 

Just over a week later we had or next event, ROLLER DERBY!!! Well the after party at least. Eleven of us rocked up to The Royal here in Palmerston North where the after party for the National Roller Derby Tournament was being held. People from all over New Zealand had come to this event making it one of the biggest events we had performed at all year. The theme was circus so of course we with all our crazy fitted in perfectly. We started off with a bit of indoor stuff which included contact juggling, poi, and regular juggling. Then it was time to block of our little area outside and start the fire show. The crowd enjoyed it and our performers and safety crew did an absolutely wonderful job.

Once again everyone made an effort to be in costume. We had all manner of circus from simple crazy face paint to a strong man and woman duo and crazy fluorescent.

 

Every year on the 31^st of October we have a regular event with St Albans Church who runs a Come as You Are Mardi Gras as an alternative to Halloween. This event has rides, an impressive amount of bouncy castles, and stalls. Then, once it’s dark, a pretty awesome fireworks display. Every year we rock up and act as filler while they are setting up the fireworks. This group is probably one of the best behaved crowds that we have and is an enjoyable event for all the performers involved.

 

And finally we were out at Rongotea on the 8^th of November for the best fireworks display ever! Another regular gig that we have which, once again, it was awesome. We started off slow with bit of crowd work, followed up by a mass free spin which lasted about 20 minutes. Then we all sat down to watch the fireworks, which were absolutely amazing.

 

A big thanks to everyone who made 2013 awesome, whether you were a performer, safety or just came and hung out with us at an event or club night. We have a few things in the works for 2014 including a showcase for the first night of club for the newbies to show off all our toys so keep an eye out for that.

Let’s make 2014 even more awesome and as always, happy twirling!!

Under the Spinfluence 2013

In early September some of our club members packed up and headed off to the Brookfield Scout Camp in Wainuiomata for the three-day madness that was Under the Spinfluence 2013.

It’s the second time this fire spinning and circus arts festival has been held, following its successful debut in 2012 – and this time it was bigger and better. Fire and circus lovers from all over New Zealand rolled in, as well as some new friendly faces from all the way across the ditch.

The Friday evening came around in the form of an Instructors’ Showcase, where the talented performers who would be running the workshops and other lessons over the weekend showed us what they were made of. After a busy day of workshops on Saturday we were entertained with the Renegade Show -  a show that anyone could enter to flaunt the new skills they’d learnt from the workshops on offer. More workshops followed on Sunday, including the hilarious Circus Olympics that saw competitors performing some unusual and very entertaining tricks to take each other out of play.

The overall vibe of the weekend was very chilled and relaxed, and the weather was much kinder to us than it was this time last year. We were free to roam the camp grounds which included access to facilities such the lake, open-air cathedral, flying foxes, bush walk, confidence course and incident course.

The weekend’s resident carnies scheduled their own days to fit in as many different workshops as they could, and we all tried a lot of new arts and toys. Some ‘glamped’ it up and stayed in the cabins on site, while others camped it up in their tents in the fields. With the shows, extended burns into the night and a dance party, there was never a lack of something to do. Also notable was the fantastic aerials dome that was constructed in the middle of the camp, the vegan meals provided by the awesome kitchen crew, and the frequent cries of ‘MORE DANGER!’ that are somewhat Spinfluence-famous.

The biggest thing we all took from this festival was inspiration. With so many passionate fire and circus performers all concentrated in the one place, it was hard not to feel the firey love.

Club member Carolyn Edgecombe tells us why club members who have yet to venture to Under the Spinfluence (and anyone else interested in learning and experiencing what it’s all about) should head on down with us next year: “Spinfluence is amazing and you not only learn heaps but you start to build an extra crazy carnie family around you. It's also a great way to get to know new people and you learn more about people in club who go as well. It's really just an awesome opportunity”.

Our club President Steph Yeung says: “I cannot emphasise how amazing of a weekend it was. I learned so much and have been inspired to do so much more. The people there are absolutely amazing! Not just skill wise but they are a lovely bunch. I think a big part in developing one’s own performance is to meet other performers and expose yourself to new ideas and styles”.

Check out Steph P’s Spinfluence video at

Check out the official website for Under the Spinfluence at http://underthespinfluence.weebly.com/instructors-and-performers.html

OUT WITH THE OLD AND IN WITH THE NEW!!

So it’s that time a year where we get a new committee and it seems we have almost had a complete overhaul so let me introduce the new troupe.




Firstly we have out New President Stephenie Yeung (Also known by The Asian)  showing us the intensity of how much of an awesome president she plans to be this year.

 

Second we have out new Treasurer Katheryn Pascoe Serving us fierce 80’s colour pop realness 








Next Up is the boy who recently decided he will no longer grow up and admit to being as crazy as the rest of us our new Safety and Gear officer is Scott Newberry

Returning in a new position we have Carolyn Edgecumbe As our Performance coordinator
















This year Our Fuel is Taelon Batty  Again and since last year we only had a pic of a cat and a water melon here is Taelon as a cat and a bat .

 

 

 

And this yeah Myself Matt Gray am filling the role of secretary

This year we also have Ty As our Assistant……. EVERYTHING
And finally this year we have our Patron Lynelle Munns

 

 

Super Happy Fun Times in Wangas!

Yes, you read that right! You can have Super Happy Fun Times in places other than Palmerston North.
Now, calm down Palmy... It's summer break! Uni's been over for a while and, as you would know, people do some crazy things over Summer Break...

But, as alway, I digress. We got invited to a Festival of Cultures by the local council and we jumped at the chance to hang out in the River City! We rounded up the kids and set up camp at The Riverside Motel, and we bought the fun to the party!

This was also an introduction of our stilt walkers!

A rather sinister shadow in the back....

From there, we were invited back for a couple other shows, such as the River City Caboodle. This was a day celebrating the vintage eras and was a blast for all involved!

Look, they think they're Beatles!

I can't tell who was the Egg and who was the Spoon in this race...

Some-one call a Doctor!

Moving on to the most recent stint in the River City, we've been doing some stuff for the NZ Master Games. As yet, there are no photos of this event, as we are waiting for them to be released, but we rocked out some fire shows over the last weekend and have one more this week! This was a fantastic event and gave the crew an opportunity to discover the pitfalls of togas! Much adjustment on the night!

Will keep y'all posted on our next event!

See ya soon!
Ty

Return of the Club

Well...

It would seem that things have one again gotten the better of us over the last year... But let's be honest. If you look through the last little bit of our blog, you'd likely see that its a fairly common theme. However, given that this is a new year and it is actually at the start, We shall endeavor to appease the masses and make some updates! One can always be hopeful!

So, with the end of the last year, we had another change in leadership with the tragic loss of Steph and Claire, due to study related incidents. But who am I to judge?

Carrying on!

We have new people on the Committee this year, and with the wonderful powers of the Internets, I shall present them forthwith, using some of the worst photos possible!

Taking the lead this year is our new President, Beth! Or... Iron Bess... Or Amy Army! Sometimes even going by "Oi, you there!".

Coming in safely and on the new front, is the ever co-ordinated Te Rina, as our new Safety Officer

And rounding out our list of new comers is Taelon! This wonderful young man is our new fuel guard!

Unfortunately, we couldn't find a picture of him, so here is a cat pushing a watermelon out of a lake... I hope that appeases you.

Now, mainly because I'm lazy, and it saves on read length (honesty and logic is how I work), I present, in all their... Glory?
Lynelle (Performance Co-ordinator), Carolyn (Treasurer), Nicky* (Assistant Performance Co-ordinator) and of course, Ty/Myself as Secretary!

*(O.K. it is a pretty good pic of Nicky, but that girl is strangely photogenic... Or she know how to be awesome infront of a camera).


Anyway, enough of this hoohah!
The next one will have what we've been up to!

Peace!
Ty

Better Late than Never

Right well, looks like we are just a *bit* overdue for a new post.  I think it is almost guaranteed that if at the beginning of the year you make a promise like "biweekly posts" it will not happen.  But here's hoping that this sets a new trend.

Enough of saying sorry  - lets get to the interesting stuff!

The beginning of the school year gave us lots to do.  As everyone settled into their studious (or not so studious) roles, we had fun on the weekends performing at gigs.  We had the Lantern Festival, Arts on Edge, participated in the Relay for Life with Highly Flammable (a Wellington company which obviously shares our interest in fire), and a few performances for Massey University.  Then came the winter lull.  Luckily club members kept high spirits and we made some of our own fun.  We had a few casual meet ups in the square to do some spinning, even one with the Manawatu drummers!  That was pretty neat, it's always nice to have extra creativity around, especially when that creativity results in music for us.  There was also a trip to the circus - in which we even managed to keep all our members from running off to join them.

Club members have also been branching out on their own time into some more circus arts and such.  We have a few of our members working towards being able to do aerial work (much harder than it looks!).  Some of our crew have become pretty awesome stilters! Creativity is flowing when it comes to making our own toys too, everything from rope darts to glow fans have been cropping up within our crew.  Needless to say we are pretty excited to see where all of this leads to, and it's great to see people taking their learning and gear into their own hands.

On that note, the winter lull is ending and it looks like the next couple of months are going to be pretty busy.  Stay tuned for proper information about the gigs in our future but for now lets just say we have a bit of travelling coming up and possibly even some costumes to make :)

I think that the thing on most of our minds right now is UNDER THE SPINFLUENCE!  About 10 of our members have been able to get tickets to participate in this event.  It's set to happen in only about 2 weeks time and it looks like it is going to be amazing!  The amount of talent that is going to be present at this festival is almost overwhelming, so let's hope we come home with some new tricks and great memories.

I'll leave you now with some photos and videos for your viewing pleasure.  Hope to be a bit more reliable on the updates this semester!  Take care and happy spinning!

Pictures:

 Clubs Day Fun

 Having a ball with photography

 Using creativity to make awesomeness

 Juggling Act

 Just hanging around (and trying to lock up Lynelle)

 Spinning railway style

 The Lantern Festival

 The Lantern Festival 2

 Stilt dancing at the Relay for Life

 Showing off our gear (vote for Nicky! in the HOP competition)

 Lighting up the Relay

Balloons at Carterton!

Videos:
MUFC Compilation Video - thanks Steph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inDqasP2m34&feature=plcp 

Lantern Festival Performance - thanks for filming Ben, and to all performers :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8y2ySBuwVs&feature=plcp  

Unity and Diversity Performance - thanks Nicky, and all those involved!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ_TGFtcpsU&feature=share 

U & D: The making of - thanks Tammy and crew
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qCDde_7sdQ&feature=share 

New Year, New Crew, and New Possibilities

Well, as previously stated it appears that a new year is upon us...even if it did seemingly creep up out of no where!  We are excited about 2012 being another year of great experiences for the club.

So first off I think we should introduce some new faces to the club's committee (and some not so new).  Without further ado, we have:

Tyran Mirko returning as club president

Carolyn Edgecumbe emerging as treasurer

Lynelle Munns in our new role of performance coordinator

 Nicky Strang taking care of us as safety officer

Steph Yeung keeping us fired up as fuel coordinator

 Claire Hesling emerging as club secretary

Now that we have introduced you to the new committee we can introduce some new club information...

This year is going to be another exciting year for the club!  We already have a busy fall ahead of us with quite a few performances at Massey, in town (as part of the growing arts community in Palmerston North), and some exciting bigger shows including the Balloon Festival, Lantern Festival, the Retro Square affair, and more.  I will be keeping the blog up to date with new events in the right hand events bar.  In addition to the abundance of performances in our future the club is also branching out into more ways to enhance our member's experience.  This means that as well as providing our staples of fire poi and fire staff we are going to be offering new things this year.  Look our for stilts, fire snakes, fire fans, hula hooping, and more costuming/character work.

Right well, that's it for now and so I will leave you with photos of some of our shenanigans over the summer.  Take care and keep watching this space!

 Fire poi with Ty (thanks to Shane Bayley)

Lynelle's flow levi-stick.  She disappeared! (thanks to Shane Bayley)

Claire's antispin flower (thanks to Shane Bayley)

Kiwiburn 2012 - A lucky few of our members managed to get to Kiwiburn this year.  It was an amazing time full of very welcoming people and lots of fun.  Also a great place to enhance your fire skill set.  Definitely recommended to all firespinners! (Hopefully next year we can get more club members to join in the fun)

 Renee with fire fans

Some fire spinners at KiwiBurn

Carolyn before and after - stilts edition