For the last two weeks in May, teaching artist and performer Tara Burke has worked with K-2 students at Edgewood Community Elementary School in Eugene. In addition to helping students create and decorate their very own hoops, Tara teaches everything from basic balance principles to hoop isolations using the numbers of the clock for directions. This was especially helpful for Janet Watson’s second graders who are practicing telling time and learning fractions. For the final day of the residency, close to two hundred students joined hands, and without letting go, passed colorful hoops around themselves and to their classmates for a game of “Hoop Houdini”. Tara also amazed the group by turning down the lights and performing two routines with LED hoops. The colors swirled around the gym and other than the absolute silence of the students you could hear a few ‘ooohs’ and ‘ahhs’ at seeing how practice, dedication, and commitment to an art form can create such beauty.
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