Hey gang!
Drex here from Drexfactor.com and I wanted to talk with you a bit today about performance
and specifically the hardware that we use in performing with poi.
I see a lot of folks online asking "what are the best poi for x or y?" and I thought
I'd try and answer that for a few special cases.
I've spent a lot of time in the past few years thinking about how to get the best results
from poi onstage and I wanted to share some of what I've found with you guys.
I'm going to divvy this video up into three categories: unlit or daytime poi, LED, and
fire poi but no matter which of these categories you're working with, the best option for
you is going to depend greatly on what your performance area or stage is like.
Before we begin, I'd also like to point one thing out.
You choices for what you spin for a performance should be based around the same criteria as
every other choice you make for this performance: how do I give the audience the best experience
I possibly can?
We often think of performances as an opportunity to show off our skill and be the center of
attention, but personally I see it as a form of service.
You're there to entertain people, so make sure you're considering their enjoyment
of your work at least as much if not more than your own.
With all that said, let's get started by looking at unlit or daytime poi.
We probably have more options in this category than any other simply because there are more
ways to build a set of unlit poi than there are ways to build LED or fire poi.
You can have sock poi, flag poi, Zuni poi, contact poi, or even poi of your own construction.
I'll say up front that it's an under-appreciated option, but flag or Zuni poi fill up a lot
of space and are visible from quite far away.
They also severely restrict the vocabulary of tricks that you're able to perform and
can be a nightmare to use in the wind.
If your performance space isn't windy and your choreography consists mainly of pretty
basic tricks, these are not a bad option.
Sock poi are an interesting option for performance because they more or less turn the entire
surface of the poi itself into a visible part of the performance.
That said, they can also look amateurish if they're made out of actual socks and generally
aren't terribly visible from far away.
There are some exceptions, however: wider sock poi with stripes show up really well
to an audience and are a popular option in Europe.
Some examples of this kind of poi are the Fairywings poi used by Loooop and Lara Lyo
as well as the striped sock poi sold by Home of Poi.
In general, though, I'm not a fan of sock poi for performance purposes.
As for contact poi, bigger and brighter is better, especially if you're going to be
on a stage.
In general, the bigger the poi head the more visible it is.
Lots of people like use 100mm heads for this reason.
When it comes to your tethers, you'll always want to select a lighter color with white
being the ideal.
I know they're easy to get dirty, but black tethers have a tendency to disappear, especially
onstage!
My preferred stage contact poi are 90 mm orange heads with 8 mm white ropes.
This is thicker than I normally use, but it also shows up much better.
Just to give you an example of this, here is video of a performance that Mel did for
PoiCon this past year with a set of darker contact poi.
The lighting is good enough that you can still make out the heads but even in a well-lit
environment like this his tethers are practically invisible.
Now here's a performance I did with my contact poi a couple years ago.
See how much more the entire poi pop?
And I've got much less lighting on me than Mel did.
One other quick note on color selections, especially if you're going to have stage
lighting.
Colors work differently depending on whether you're dealing with colored light or colored
objects.
Colored light consists solely of light of a given color, while colored objects appear
colored because they're reflecting that color back at our eyes.
But--they do this by absorbing every other color of light.
Why is this important?
It means that you have to be careful about matching your lighting to the color of your
costuming and poi.
For example, let's say that my lighting is primarily red.
This means I'm not shining any blue light on the stage and it means that if I've selected
blue poi to spin with that they will not reflect any light back at the audience and they'll
appear to be more or less black.
Here's a great example of this in action--this is a photo that was taken a couple years ago
at a stage performance in Los Angeles.
My duet partner's dress seems to be covered with black flowers.
When we did this same performance with different lighting the following year, however, you
can see that those flowers were actually bright blue.
Just like with tethers, white poi heads reflect all colors, so you're guaranteed they'll
show up onstage.
You can also get around this problem by being smart in your color selection and choosing
colors for your poi that are not primary colors.
One of the reasons I chose orange heads is that they show up in pretty much any lighting
other than totally blue light and that's a really rare lighting choice for most performances
I've been in.
Now to LED poi!
I'm going to open this section by asking how far away your audience is going to be
because now it's going to start making a huge difference.
In general, LED poi can be found in both lower as well as higher brightness options.
In general, lower brightness is appropriate for smaller audiences that are closer to you
whereas brighter and larger poi are more appropriate for audiences that are farther away or larger.
Isn't brighter always better?
No, not necessarily.
I honestly get a headache from being near super bright LEDs for too long, If your audience
is within 20 feet of you, they can have the same problem.
Especially if you're in a small space like a club, super bright LEDs can be not just
overwhelming but kind of obnoxious.
You should also consider the effect your LEDs are going to have on what your audience can
see.
I'm going to do a whole video on this at some point because I think most performers
haven't spent much time thinking about it, but LEDs almost always create situations where
your body and your tethers are unlit and the bulk of what can be perceived in your performance
is simply the ends of the poi themselves.
Some LEDs are bright enough to illuminate your body, but in most cases you should assume
that most of your body is going to be invisible or at least very difficult to see.
With some very bright LED poi, the body of the performer is illuminated somewhat but
that doesn't mean that the tether is.
If your choreography consists of a lot of body tracers, inversions, or even negative
space, go super bright because otherwise these tricks won't look like anything to the audience.
There are some exceptions: the light-up sock poi made by Ultrapoi, Spinoptics by LanternSmith,
and of course the many varieties of LED strip poi display greater portions of the poi for
your audience.
I think it's safe to say at this point that the LED strip poi are kind of considered the
gold standard for performance nowadays in high-profile or corporate gigs.
They're almost always a huge investment, but it's tough to beat wowing your audience
both with your moves as well as the pictures they produce.
One quick word on these: like the flag poi, most LED strip poi severely limit the vocabulary
of moves that you can perform with them both because most of their length is not flexible
as well as their weight distribution being significantly different than most practice
poi.
That said, the graphics that they generate frequently tip the scales back the other way
for the audience.
Use at your own discretion.
Finally, let's talk about fire poi.
Let's just say up-front that spinning fire for an audience is nearly always impressive
in and of itself, but there are a lot of ways that it can be made even more exciting.
For most sets of fire poi, unless your audience is pretty close you're going to want to
make sure that your heads are at least 3 inches or longer along one of their dimensions.
There's a lot of variety in fire poi head form factor, but I'm going to risk oversimplifying
things with this rule.
A couple years ago, I did some testing with Dark Monk on different styles of fire poi
heads and we got some pretty detailed data on the size of the flame each style creates
as well as how much fuel they absorb and how long they stay lit.
I'll link to it in the description so you can get more detail on these things if you
want.
Just like with unlit and LED poi, you can also create a more exciting show for your
audience with snake style poi.
Like the LED strip poi, however, these come at the cost of severely restricting your vocabulary
of moves.
It's up to you whether it's worth it or not.
Of course, just as LED strip poi are considered the go-to for corporate gigs now, the go-to
for massive fire performance nowadays are cage poi.
You can fill these with either steel wool or wood chips to create massive trails of
sparks that create an overwhelming experience for your audience.
Clearly, these are also the most dangerous type of poi we've talked about so far because
there is a fairly good chance that they can ignite other flammable objects or liquids
in the area so make sure that your safety game is at the top of the heap.
I think it's also safe to say that these restrict the type of tricks you can use more
than any other set of poi we've looked at thus far.
They also don't last very long at all--so the applications for these are very, very
limited.
So, I hope that helps you guys out some!
I tried really hard to include as many options for as many types of performance as I possibly
could here.
What are your favorite poi to perform with?
Let me know down in the comments!
Thanks so much for watching and enjoy the flow.
Peace.
Hey!
Thanks so much for watching my video!
If you got anything out of it, please leave it a like and subscribe to help my channel
grow.
Special thanks to all my wonderful backers on Patreon--you guys are the ones that make
my videos possible!
If you're not current a backer and would like to sign up to support my channel, please
visit patreon.com/drexfactorpoi.
Thanks so much in advance!
For more infomation >> Fan Interview with Emily, Jenny and Stella from Warpaint (São Paulo - Brazil - 04/02/2017) - Duration: 6:46. 
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét