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Home > Atlanta Music Scene > Archives > 2007 > October > 13 > Entry
Hooping it up at Echo
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The Echo Project music festival south of Atlanta may have the highest concentrations in metro Atlanta of smoking paraphernalia, guys calling each other “bro,” and, surprisingly, hula hoops. The old kids’ toy, introduced about 50 years ago, is everywhere.
Dozens of young women dot the festival grounds, standing by themselves or with a few friends, languidly dancing with their plastic hoops. But this is far from the kids’ game of standing in one spot and frantically spinning the hoop at the waist. The basic dance is what’s been called the “noodle dance,” a loose, free-form movement favored by jam band fans, but with the hula hoop moved up and down the body, from waist to torso to neck to outstretched arms, then back down.
The effect, when done right, is somewhat hypnotic for the dancer and for those who watch.
“It puts you in a zone,” said Nikita Kern, a waitress from St. Louis, Mo. “It’s like you’re playing your own instrument.” She said she had thought that hula hooping to jam bands was a local phenomenon back in Missouri, and was surprised to see so many young women hooping it up at Echo.
“I think it was the Spring Cheese Incident kids who started it,” said Rachael Terman, referring to a popular jam band. “It’s been going on for a few years. Terman is a vendor who makes her own hoops by hand, from recycled plastic utility pipe liners and sells them for $20. (Thus in keeping with the Echo’s “Green” theme.)
“Some of these girls really get into it, it’s like an art form,” said Josey Henton, 21, up from Santa Fe Community College in Gainesville and an avid hooper.
The other must-have accessory for many is a bandana, worn up over the nose and mouth to ward off the dust being kicked up off the dry, drought-stricken fields. Concert-goers walk around looking like Old West train robbers, if those robbers had also favored cargo shorts and sunglasses.
“You get a lot of dust kicked up,” said David Ashbrook, a jewelry vendor from Asheville, N.C.., sporting a blue and white patterned bandana. “But it comes with the territory. We’re praying for an afternoon rain, just a brief one, even though that’s not gonna happen. It’s a double-edged sword; you normally don’t want rain, but it keeps the dust down .”
Erin Cowey, a junior at the College of Charleston, didn’t have a bandana so she improvised a maroon and red silk scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth. “It’s been really bad, blowing up my nose. I’ve been coughing a lot. There’s also a lot of smoke around. It can’t be healthy.”
But there was no rain in sight Saturday afternoon. The sky was bright blue and cloudless, broken ony by the occasional jet high above heading into or out of Hartsfield-Jackson.
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