Ruby Skye - it has loomed before me as a shimmering golden ring, illuminated with sparkling lights, glittery fairy dust, and choirs of angels singing. It was something I never thought I would achieve because it required such a high level of skill, both as a hooper and as a performer. I am practical, if nothing else, and I know my strengths and weaknesses, so performing there seemed like a pipe dream. A few months ago, we were asked to perform at SF Weekly's Best of San Francisco party which was held at Ruby Skye. I jumped at the chance (despite the fact that the performance was the night before I flew to San Diego for my sister's wedding) because I thought it would be my only opportunity to experience being on the Ruby Skye stage. The date came on the tail-end of a lot of other things going on in my life, including a hideous allergic reaction which manifested itself as a bumpy, hivey mess on my face that required me to cancel a photo shoot. I couldn't let that stop me from being on the stage at Ruby Skye! A little makeup and some dark lighting and no one would be able to tell the difference, right?

Ruby Skye is a beautiful venue, built in the 1890s. It was one of the first places I went when I moved to San Francisco back in 2001, and it was a far cry from the casual beach bars I was used to frequenting in college (no cover, no dress code, no problem!). Even then, I was struck by the grandeur of the interior, but as a hooper I was even more awed knowing the high caliber of hooping possessed by those who had performed on that stage. I knew that it wouldn't be the same as performing at Ruby Skye on a Saturday night (SF Weekly rented the venue for a weeknight, so a comparable example would be performing at Carnegie Hall as a headliner vs. performing at Carnegie Hall when some rich person rented the venue for a private birthday party), but I still couldn't pass up the opportunity.

Fast forward to August - my first performance at Ruby Skye. I was trying to stay calm, but things were going haywire. I allotted myself two hours to do my hair and makeup, and the first thing that happened: I couldn't find my moisturizer, which I put on before any makeup. I spent twenty minutes ransacking my bathroom and every place I have ever put any makeup in an effort to find this tiny bottle. I finally took a deep breath and told myself that I could get by without it and that it would turn up eventually. I'm getting better with the fake eyelashes, but the new pink feather eyelashes I bought to match this costume were virgin new. I'd never glued them on before, so I didn't realize how stiff the band was or how they didn't follow the contour of my Asian eyes until Saturday night. After a few botched attempts, I told myself that they didn't have to be perfect and moved on to the rest of my hair and makeup.

Satise and I were going to drive over together, but her babysitter was running late and she didn't want to make me late for my first set. This posed a dilemma for me: drive my brand new four day old car without any license plates (which, for some reason, makes me feel paranoid that it's more likely to be stolen - although I have absolutely no empirical evidence to back this up - but it's the first brand new car I've ever bought so I'm still a little skittish) or drive the old car that overheats and might break down on the bridge. I opted for #1. As Shane said, if someone really wants to steal the car, the presence or absence of license plates isn't going to matter.

We arrived exactly on time! Once inside the dressing room, I saw that not only were the go go dancers backstage, but the aerial artists were performing that night as well. I love watching all of them perform, but from a space point of view, it's pretty tight as it is. Six go go dancers, six aerialists (and their handlers), plus me is a lot of people in a very small space. I spent most of the time trying to stay out of the way. The go go dancers change outfits between every set so they are always a flurry of makeup, feathers, wigs, and glitter. The aerialists were stretching and warming up, which takes up more space than you might think! Annie later told me that although it can be intimidating to be around all the other performers, I need to stake out my own space there (instead of standing pressed against the wall next to the fire extinguisher to let people pass by continuously). As she said, I have just as much right to be there as anyone else. I don't know why I was being such a wall flower. I guess I felt that since my hair, makeup, and costume were all in place and I didn't need to do handstands to warm up, I was fine where I was. Poor Shane was stuck downstairs by himself. Ruby Skye is definitely not his kind of scene, and he was not feeling well, but he toughed it out for three long hours of thumping music to be there on my first night.

The go go dancers perform several 20 minute sets each night, and there were three aerial acts. I was sandwiched between them in every sense of the word. The timing was great at the beginning of the night. My first set was at midnight on the dot. The second and third sets were supposed to be at 1am and 2am, but we got a little backed up and as a consequence, my second set was at 1:35am. I was parked in a garage that closes at 2am, so I asked the go go dancers if I could do my last set before they went back onstage. They were gracious enough to let me go back out, but that meant I had only five minutes off between sets. Not only was I tired, but I didn't want to repeat most of what I'd done in my second set since I knew all of the same people would be watching. As soon as I finished my last set, I ran upstairs, grabbed my coat and bag, and headed for the garage, only to see the parking attendant pulling down the metal gate. Luckily he was kind enough to let me in, otherwise I would have been stuck taking a taxi across the bridge to get home and then coming back the next day to pick up my car (and probably being charged for the second day).

So what about the actual performances? Before my first set, I pulled the elastic on my shoe covers to tighten them and ZING! the elastic disappeared inside. If you have ever washed a hooded sweatshirt without tying the ends of the string, you know what happened next - lots of pulling and tugging to get the elastic back. And I did this on both shoes! It was a blessing in disguise though, because I was so busy pulling elastic that I didn't have time to get nervous!

I was supposed to perform right after the aerial artists but before the go go dancers' next set, so I went downstairs with the go go dancers to watch the contortionist do his incredible handstand act. So much strength, flexibility, and grace! He did things that I've never seen before (and I am a long time gymnastics/dance/acrobatics fan who watches it every chance I get), all while staying in character. That's a tough act to follow, but follow it I did. The stage was already cleared and everyone's attention was focused on the stage, so I decided it was better to go right away than to wait. During his act, I'd been jumping up and down, trying to connect with the music and get my heart rate up. I didn't love the music, but I remembered Christabel's advice: pretend that this is the best music you have ever heard and believe it!

My goal was to hoop a five minute set. Because we are at the DJ's mercy, it can be difficult to gauge how long five minutes really is. Having a live DJ is like being in a Las Vegas casino - time loses all meaning. Each song melts into the next and minutes can pass like molasses (if you don't like the song) or in a flash. Jess told me that her method is to hoop until she's tired and then hoop a little more, and that's usually about five minutes. At the SF Weekly party, I performed the shortest set (just under five minutes compared to the seven minutes Ariane and Claudia performed), so I wanted to make sure that I performed long enough. Shortly after I began, the hoop slipped out of my hand during atomic twirl. I know that it happens sometimes, but I hate to play it safe by not doing something "just in case." I don't want to start dividing my tricks into "safe for performance" and "only when no one is watching." This is why I ALWAYS hoop on one leg while performing. I usually end up dropping the hoop, but I need to keep doing it in performance because nothing adequately simulates how my adrenaline rush affects my timing. For the record, I got my leg back into the hoop after hooping on one leg two times out of three that night!

I would guess that my sweaty palms contributed to the little slip with the atomic twirl. Thank goodness my hoop didn't whack anyone in the face! Someone near the edge of the stage handed it back to me so I blew him a kiss, which you can't see in the video because it's so dark. After about two minutes, the stage went from pitch black to blue lights. Then the inevitable breakdown (when the music slows down). Again, because we aren't allowed to give the DJ our own music ahead of time, we have to respond to the music and go with the flow. You never know how long a breakdown will last. Sometimes it's ten seconds, sometimes it's, ahem, much longer, but it's hard to tell when it's going to end. This one lasted an entire minute, so I kept thinking it would be over soon but it just kept going and going and going. When I got off stage, Shane told me that I had hooped over seven minutes - wow! I thought I had been up there barely five minutes.

Five minutes isn't a long time to hoop when grooving in my own world, but five minutes of high energy performance hooping is another story. It's exhausting, physically and mentally. Ideally, I don't want to repeat a bunch of the same stuff, so usually about halfway through the set, I start thinking about what I have already done (and sometimes my adrenaline is pumping so much that I can't remember) and what I can still do that will be interesting. It's an endurance test, a slow motion sprint, to make it through five minutes of club hooping. I came off the stage drenched in sweat, my heart racing, thinking about how good a blast of air conditioning or some icy cold water would feel.

As someone who used to take dance classes as a child, I'm used to being told what to do. Someone choreographs a routine, I learn it, and then I perform it. Most hoopers do the exact opposite - they improvise. It has been a long process for me to learn to let go and stop thinking about what to do next. One of the major skills I have been working on improving in the last year is my ability to improvise. It's very counterintuitive to the dance classes that I've taken in the past, so it's been an interesting and challenging journey.

After my first set, I went upstairs to watch the video, and get some water. It's hard to see everything on my camera's two inch screen, but I just wanted to get a feel for what the performance looked like. I couldn't tell very well because of the lighting, but I drank lots of water and cooled down. That's when I realized I had to pee. Everything on my costume was pinned together to prevent migration, so going to the bathroom would require undoing everything from the waist down aside from my shoes. It was just barely past midnight and I knew that I couldn't wait two hours to pee, so I decided to suck it up since I had another half hour or so to re-pin myself. Onstage, the performers seem so glamorous, but as anyone who has ever worked in the arts can tell you, it's anything but glamorous backstage. At Ruby Skye, there is a toilet enclosed by plywood that doesn't extend all the way to the ceiling. There is no sink and the toilet is often backed up or overflowing. Fortunately for me, the toilet was backed up but not overflowing. The door is right in front of the toilet, so the doorknob is exactly at my eyelevel when copping a squat. I've peed in much worse circumstances though, so this was nothing! And I was prepared with hand wipes since I couldn't wash my hands at the non-existent sink.

A few months ago, Ruby Skye started putting sofas onstage against the back wall. They let VIPs sit up there behind the DJ to watch the whole club go crazy. Now in addition to the sofas, they are letting 30-40 VIPs onstage to dance. I had to ask the bouncer to move everyone back before my second set. I don't like to be demanding, so just asking the bouncer to do his job felt like I was being a little bit pushy, but there was no way I could have performed in that sea of people. Once they were all moved safely out of the hoop's path, I entered only to see reflections of all the lights on the floor because apparently the VIPs had either spilled drinks everywhere or put their glasses down all over the stage. It was too late to stop dancing to ask the bouncer to wipe down the floor, so I spent most of the set looking down at the floor to avoid slipping in the wet spots. In addition, my boot covers started sliding around so that the fabric was covering almost the entire ball of my foot. I normally put my weight forward on the front part of my foot, but this was causing my front foot to slide forward an inch or so which felt unsafe to me. To keep myself from falling, I tried to stay back on my heels, which felt awkward. I danced around the wet spots, stayed on my heels, and stayed upright - hooray!

Before my third set, the bouncer had to clear the stage again, but this time it was nice and dry. I thought he had cleared everyone off, but just as I got to the middle of the stage I saw a few more people dancing. I think they had been in a darker area of the stage or behind the DJ which is why I didn't see them before. Clearing the stage is not a matter of snobbery, but safety. I don't want to hit anyone with my hoop, and, honestly, drunk people don't always look where they're going. They moved to the back and then I promptly dropped my hoop doing a simple move. About four minutes in, two girls in the audience decided to jump onstage and start dancing. The bouncer was on it right away and moved them off the stage.

I got home a little before 3am, but by the time I stripped off my sweaty costume (which I had to air out so I could wear it again the next day), removed a few dozen bobby pins from my head, peeled off the eyelashes, and scrubbed off all the makeup, it was 4am. I decided that since I was still awake, I might as put all the videos and pictures on my computer so that I could clear the memory card for the next day. I watched the videos on the large computer monitor and learned a lot. One of the most important things brought to mind an interview I read about an actor who started in theater and moved to television. He said that in the theater, actors are trained to make things big because the audience is so far away from them that they need to project in every way: their voices, their emotions, and their actions need to carry to the last row. When he began doing television, he realized that his theater acting looked hammy on camera because the point of view from the camera is so much closer and more intimate. Apparently I'm working in television because my hooping looked so small and non-energetic. Shane taped me at the same venue for the SF Weekly party, but he was able to stand right in front of the stage for that performance, and it looked true to life. This time around, he was further back, and it made a huge difference. All of my arm movements, head gestures, and jumps looked tiny, weak, and almost lazy from further away. I need to make a conscious effort to put a lot more energy into these moves so that people who are further back will see what the people in the front row see.

Another important thing I learned from watching these videos is that I need a new psi hoop. I bought mine a year and a half ago, about six months after I started hooping. At the time, I was still hooping with my 42" hoop. I ordered my psi hoop slightly smaller (the theory being that a smaller hoop rotates more quickly and the lights would look better at a higher speed). For the last six months or so, I have been hooping with a light 36" hoop. I haven't used my psi hoop at all, so it felt slow and heavy. I'm used to my smaller, lighter hoop responding much more quickly to my movements so there were times when I was trying to do certain movements in time to the music and my psi hoop just wasn't getting there fast enough so my movements were no longer on the beat. I know that hooping quickly with a larger hoop is doable (and undoubtedly would be great cardiovascular exercise) but at this point I think it's a better idea for me to invest in a smaller psi hoop.

The most important thing that I learned from this experience is that it was good experience. Lots of things happened that made it a less than ideal performance situation (nothing catastrophic though - just silly little things), but I feel that all of those things taught me I can handle it and keep going with a smile. As the saying goes, the show must go on!

The next day, I was feeling down on myself because I kept thinking about how my performances looked on video. I just wanted to stay in bed and sleep. I'd already told Annie that I would model in her Prepare for the Playa fashion show, so I got out of bed and started putting on all the pieces that I'd taken off only twelve hours earlier. I wasn't enthused about performing, but I ended up having a good time. We had no time restrictions or performance requirements for this gig, so I was able to just relax and have fun. I actually felt much better after performing, so I'm glad that I had the opportunity to pep up after the previous night.

So what is the moral of the story? When life hands you lemons, make lemonade! Why do lemons get such a bad rap anyway? They're light and refreshing with a kick - a perfect summery treat! I wasn't handed lemons though - I was handed a shiny sparkly ring bathed in luminous light, and I cherish it! I know that each time I perform is an opportunity to learn and improve. I can't wait to perform at Ruby Skye again!

For some reason, I can't get the videos to embed, so here are the links. Google video makes the videos bigger than the original file, so they are a little fuzzy. If you go down to the bottom right corner just underneath the video screen, click on "google video" and then on the pop up menu, click "original size." The picture will be smaller but much clearer!

Ruby Skye:
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new Prepare for the Playa:
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