Vedauwoo
[Hooping.org columnist Bonnie MacDougall paints a portrait of our Hooper of the Week, Cally Chavez.]
by Bonnie MacDougall
Meet Cally Chavez. A single mother, hooper and healer from Cheyenne, Wyoming, who took a leap with full force in November 2010 and turned her many passions into her full time career. It was at this point, almost a year ago, that Cally says she found herself, “stepping out of a place of fear to follow my heart and dreams”. She opened Creative Healing Studios which encompasses a store front to sell Cally’s art, knitting, massage oils and sugar scrubs. There’s a middle office where she offers massage and sound therapy (using tibetan singing bowls), as well as a back studio where she creates her artwork. knitting, and makes her hoops. Cally has been hooping for three years and teaching hoop dance for two, but admits that she became very serious about her teaching in the past six months. All of these arts coalesce to fulfill Cally’s dream at Creative Healing, and this year she was even able to take her massage therapy to the Return to Roots Hoop Gathering. Cally says, “Merging massage with hooping at Return to Roots Festival was awesome, but it has really come full circle with merging hooping with my art.”
Vedauwoo is an area of rocky outcrops located in south-eastern Wyoming, between Cheyenne and Laramie. Its name is an anglicized version of the Arapaho Native American word “bito’o'wu” meaning “earth-born”. Known for it’s distinctive natural beauty and sacred mystery, with history literally stretching back thousands of years, Cally often used this landscape, brimming with natural divinity, as she worked with great intention on her first collection of artwork; a dozen paintings of hoopers. While Vedauwoo provided huge boulders, caves, and in the evenings the voices of Native Americans singing for added inspiration while she stenciled and painted, she would listen to her own music, hoop and become in tune with her surroundings as part of her creative process. Cally’s time painting at Vedauwoo as part of her creation of 12 paintings, resulted in these artistic expressions of her connection to the hooping community. “Hooping has inspired me and made me so much better. The connection to spirit and the therapy that happens through hooping… This is my way to put it down and let people know how much it means to me.” Read the rest of this entry →
What if you saw a video of a girl hula hooping online that inspired you. Would you like it? Would you leave a comment? Would you share it with others? Or would you try to find her? The new documentary road movie “Hula Girl” does that latter, following two friends as they travel across America in search of a woman who posts hula hooping videos online. Officially selected for Student Film Festival London 2012 and with pending confirmations on several others, it’s exciting times for the film’s collaborators. Check out the trailer for the film below. Hooping.org talks with Hula Girl Producer Mark Bull as well to get the real spin on how the film came about and when we’ll all be able to get to see it. Read the rest of this entry →
