Flowpunzel
Kim Lewis - Seattle, WA
Kim is a Seattle-based flow artist who loves learning new tech and playing with both fire and LED props. Kim’s first prop was a hoop, but now she also enjoys exploring flow with spin flags, fans, contact staff, pixie dragon, levi wand and fiberflies. She loves flow arts because of the ability to keep challenging yourself and to never stop growing. Outside of flow arts, Kim loves attending festivals and hanging out with her friends and her little corgi, Maxwell!
q & a
Hooping (doubles, quads), fire hooping, fans (fire, LED), spin flags, levi wand, pixel whip, contact staff, pixie dragon staff, and fire eating.
I love practicing at community spin sessions at Dance Underground or OmCulture. By going there I end up learning something from the other artists or being able to teach someone else something they didn’t know yet!
I began my flow journey with hoops in June 2014. I’d never heard of flow arts or known about hoops beyond waist hooping up until that point. My friends Sarah and Shannon decided to learn, and when I saw them flowing I became very drawn to it. I used to do hip hop and was always very interested in dance, but had fallen out of practice with it. Hoops became really exciting to me because of the combination of learning challenging tricks with the outlet for self expression, which was missing from my life after dance. Seeing my friends enjoying the process and learning challenging moves was inspiring to me, so I bought my first hoop (a 36″ Moodhoops Saffron LED hoop)!
I had no idea at the time just how important hooping and flow arts in general would be in my life, or the newfound confidence and opportunities it would provide. Flow arts have helped me to continue pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. After I began hooping I saw fire performers for the first time and thought it was so amazing, but would be something that I could never do. A year later I decided to just go for it and try fire hooping. My first time flowing with fire I was terrified, but with a lot of practice I now love fire and I’ve learned more fire props like fans, fire eating, and pixie dragon. Fire flow has now become a pretty large part of my life.
I’m very proud to also now be part of the Washington Fire Collective, which is a fire performance group made up of about 30 fire performers with the intention of performing at the inner circle at Burning Man. Our group has spent the last 6 months collaborating to create a fully choreographed fire piece for submission to Burning Man 2016. Two years ago I would have never guessed that would be something I would get to be a part of. I’m so grateful for the ways that flow arts continue to transform my life and challenge me to grow.
Some of the nicest, most genuine and interesting people in my life I met through the flow community. They welcomed me, invited me to spin, and now this group of people feels like home. This has made me open up more to others and seek to make more connections with those outside of my immediate friend circle. I feel like I have stronger ties to the community in Seattle as a whole, especially when it comes to events and activities happening in the city. It has also made me more accepting of myself and able to reflect more on my intentions and what I’m looking for. As part of the community, I make an impact by attending those events and inviting others to join as well.
I try to support people looking to begin flow arts by guiding them to tutorials or ways that I’ve learned. I think everyone has a “flow” or something they could offer in this space. Flow is also a great outlet for improving mental health, physical health, and overall happiness, and I think the more people that get introduced to flow the more connected and better they will feel. I like to be a part of it by sharing what I know and making others feel like they could learn it too!