It all started out as cool party trick.
Isabella Hoops, whose real name is Kirsten Harvey, was enamoured with a group of girls who were hula hooping at a party she attended after she finished a shift as an actor at a dinner theatre show in Edmonton.
“I remember just staring at them for the longest time. I was just mesmerized,” Hoops said.
“I stared at them for about 10 minutes and then one of them eventually came over and said, ‘Do you want to hoop with us?’”
She said she was a bit apprehensive at first; she wasn’t sure if she’d be good at it or not, but she got the hang of it.
“I ended up buying a hoop that night,” she added.
Since then her interest in what she calls ‘hooping’ has grown exponentially. She moved to Toronto and got involved with the company Zero Gravity Circus to build up her skills. She also slowly began working it into her routine as a busker and nearly a decade later, Hoops has turned her passion into a business. She’s now the founder and owner of Isabella Hoops Entertainment and also teaches hula hooping in several different Toronto schools.
And for the third year, Torontonians can also catch Hoops as one of the 170 world-class performers at this year’s Toronto International BuskerFest for Epilepsy, presented by Scotiabank, from Aug. 27 to 30.
“It’s an awesome festival. All the volunteers and support from the city is great,” said the Queen Street and Roncesvalles Avenue resident.
“It’s super well organized and it’s a great festival to be a part of.”
This is the largest festival of its kind in North America and is also the world’s biggest epilepsy fundraising event. Last year BuskerFest raised $250,000 for Epilepsy Toronto. For 2015, the street festival plans to take over the Downtown Yonge neighbourhood from Aug. 27 to 30 throughout the Yonge Street corridor, from Queen to College Streets, which will be closed to traffic, and surrounding areas including Yonge-Dundas Square.
There are more than 70 acts that will have something for everyone to enjoy, including daredevil stunts, fire manipulations, acrobatics, aerial acts, music, magic, comedy, contortion, dance, balloon creations, mime and more.
Hoops has two shows she’ll be performing. The first is an interactive “silly” performance as Kiki the clown for children, which includes a 20-hoop trick that she’s mastered. The second is as Isabella Hoops, where she will perform her latest “mind-boggling trick.”
“It’s called the slinky,” Hoops told the Villager.
Standing at just 5’6”, Hoops can manage to fit 30 spinning hula hoops on her entire body.
“It looks crazy because it covers my body from head to toe. It’s really cool.”
She’s also perfected a trick called the Square that involves spinning a hoop on her knee, foot and two hands. Hoops said she’s learned about 100 tricks over the years all of which are built upon an assortment of basic hula hooping skills that all tie into one another.
“It’s like playing an instrument,” she said.
“You got to know your scales and nail your scales, and do them over and over again and once you can do that really well, then you can build on that and get into some crazy intermediate to advance skills.”
Hoops uses her entire body for her tricks, she said, adding it goes beyond the classic movement of getting the hoop to stay around your waist.
“I can hula hoop around my neck, knees, foot, hands, shoulder...there’s endless possibilities. I can even move different hoops in opposite directions on the same body part,” she said.
“The waist is just a starting point.”
For more information about BuskerFest, visit http://torontobuskerfest.com
For information about Isabella Hoops performances, visit http://isabellahoopsentertainment.com
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