User:Sara monidi/Hula hoop: a cultural phenomenon

''HULA HOOP: A CULTURAL PHENOMENON'

'''Siamak Monjezi, PhD, MFC & Fatemeh Saidi, PsyD, MFC

CEO & Clinical Directors of CNC (Counseling & Neurotherapy Center)

Date of Submission: 05-11-2011

TABLE OF CONTENTS

HULA HOOP: A CULTURAL PHENOMENON

The Resurgence of Hula Hoop Phenomenon

Group Dance-Fitness Training Programs

Application of Hula Hoop in Psychological Research

HULA HOOP: A CULTURAL PHENOMENON

This article intends to explore the history of hula hoop invention and evaluate its influence in American pop culture since 1958 to the present time. Hula Hoop can be easily viewed as a socio-cultural phenomenon for having deep influence in the way many people (children and adults alike) play for fun, dance, do physical exercises, or meditate to approach harmony, peace, and wellbeing in life. Historical documents indicate that the hula hoop phenomenon has had special influence on the American-style of dance and music specifically during late 1950s and early 1960s. Hula hoop has had a worldwide influence on forming new groups (known as Hoopers), gathered around a common goal (especially in the USA) during the last 50 years (1). The influence has been mainly obvious in a variety of different individual and group physical, seasonal, and ceremonial activities. These activities include: children’s outdoor play, family recreational gatherings, weight loss and fitness exercises, yoga, meditation, and artistic-aerobic (stage) Hoop Dance (2).

Hula hoop is an O-shape plastic tubing, which a Hooper circles (spins or rotates) around his/her body as a form of systematic physical activity known as Hooping (3). A “Hooper” is a person who does the hooping for play and different physical exercises as mentioned above (4). Throughout history, people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds have applied different individual and group activities to improve their Physical, Psychological, Social, and Spiritual (P.P.S.S.) wellbeing. This goal is initially approached through coping with P.P.S.S. Stresses. Especially, the spiritual dance, in which dancers circle either their whole body or parts of their body (especially hips) in a rotating motion, has had much application in different cultures (5). Since the late 1990s, Aerobic Hoop Performance -as a form of creative self-expression- has been used by many hoopers to express their abilities in artistic ways. As a form of Motion-based Meditation, this creative dance has especially received a lot of attention for the purpose of Mindfulness Meditation and P.P.S.S. growth (6) (7).

Hula hoop had its first worldwide appearance as an outdoor family-oriented recreation and children’s play back in 1958. It was a big hit especially on American media more than a year following the Elves Presley’s first nationally televised appearance on the Milton Berle Show on April 3, 1956 (8). There are some authors who believe that his “Hip Hop Dance” and its sexual appeal partly attracted the media’s attention towards the hoop dance. As history shows hula hoop became the biggest hit in the USA and several other countries regarding the games and toys industry in late 50s and early 60s (9).

A major common theme in free-style music is a fast-beat continuous rhythm based on which the hip hop dance was developed in the 1950s throughout 1970s. This fast-beat rhythm also is the common background rhythm in hoop dance. This common rhythmic background seems to be one major reason for hula hoop and hoop dance to become very popular during late 1950s and early 1960s. There seems to be a good coincidence that around the same time which hip hop music was getting popular, the hoop dance with the similar background rhythm was created to attract the attention of millions of people around the globe.

The fast-beat rhythm of hoop dance even inspired some famous musicians to produce some songs around its musical rhythm. For instance, Ross Bagdasarian wrote the song “Christmas Don’t Be Late.” Another example was Georgia Gibbs who sang “The Hula Hoop Song” on the famous Ed Sullivan TV show, which became her last US 32nd hit on the 1958 Chart Position of the best 100 songs. Also, Teresa Brewer sang another song called, “The Hula Hoop Song” which became the 38th hit on the 1958 Chart Position of the 100 best songs. Regardless of all the fuss, it took just a few years for this phenomenon to take an upside-down shift and become another big hit in the American families’ garage sales’ items on weekends.

The Resurgence of Hula Hoop Phenomenon

After a period of down fall for about 35 years, hula hoop has started to regain its position in the American pop culture since the late 1990s (10) (11) (12). Hula hoop made its reappearance on the stage at concerts and music videos by Justin Timberlake, Scissor Sisters, Fergie, and Beyonce. The Violets and The String Cheese Incident are believed to be responsible for the hula hoop reappearance in late 1990s. In their shows they tossed hula hoops into the audience, encouraging people to do the hoop-dance (13). However, the nationwide resurgence mainly came when people –especially females- started group hoop-dance and hoop-workout classes for fitness and artistic purposes during the first decade of the 21st century.

Group Dance-Fitness Training Programs

In about last 20 years, many fitness exercise instructors have added two features to their teaching programs: music and dance. The new combination of music-dance and fitness-weight loss exercises (especially music videos) has made the fitness programs more appealing to the people. Especially, the people who were not internally motivated enough to do physical exercises routinely on a daily or weekly basis became more interested in doing physical exercise by joining the group dance-fitness programs. It seems that mere physical exercise especially when it is done alone and not as a group activity is not much appealing to many people. Group dance-fitness activities have made the fitness programs more interesting by making them entertaining, artistic, and sociable. These physical exercises have helped create new groups and communities in which people have similar needs, interests, and talents. Dance-fitness training programs have become new and effective ways of social networking with their especial social-cultural advantages (14).

The essential feature of hoop dance is that it naturally has artistic, creative, and self-expressive qualities. These qualities have made the hula hoop phenomenon an outstanding multi-purpose activity and a perfect format for fitness programs, which in turn has made the fitness and weight loss exercises more artistic, sophisticated, and effective (15). In the first decade of 21st century, the dance-fitness programs including hoop dance practices, have had a strong presence on the media, especially TV and internet in the USA and many other countries. This new development opened a great opportunity for many instructors to invent and use new designs of hula hoops with different weights for physical exercise, play, dance, and aerobic circus-style hooping tricks.

One event which also promoted the application of hula hoop occurred on October 21, 2009 in the White House. The headline news on that day read: “Michelle Obama Hula Hoops to Promote Kids’ Health” (16) (17). The news showed the First Lady Michelle Obama and her two girls hooping on the south lawn of the White House. Fighting against children’s obesity, Michelle Obama was trying to encourage families to get their children more involved in the outdoor play. She used hula hoop to remind the Americans of the old time back in late 1950s and early 1960s when the invention of hula hoop got American families and especially children more involved in outdoor play and physical activities. Media and many websites on the internet have been reflecting on this event ever since. In the November of 2009, about one month after the kid’s fair, the First Lady reflected on the media’s and people’s reactions in an interview. She said that she was happy to see that Americans reacted well to her message. However, she added: “I … probably got a little too much attention from the hula-hooping, but the goal was really engaging families and kids in the whole area of fitness” (18).

Hula hoop has also shown to be a good means in marketing products. For instance, Coca Cola Company has used hula hooping as an icon in its TV commercials in recent years (19). And, in the famous “ABC Show of Dharma & Greg,” they promoted hula hooping for fitness and dance exercises in TV ad campaigns (20). Also, “Heart FM” a UK radio station followed this trend by using the idea of hoop dance and exercise in its programs for marketing purposes(21). Many clubs also have started using hoop performers for attracting more audience. Recently, some corporations such as Sony and Philips have used hula hoop in their trade fares and corporate events. Even the infamous filmmaking company Warner Bros. has used hoop performers in its academy award ceremonies to bring more excitement into their programs. In recent years, hooping has made itself present in frequent gatherings, bringing communities together. Hoopers get together from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds to celebrate events such as: Annual National and International Hoop Championship Competitions (22). World Hoop Day (Charity for Children) (23) and Hoop Camp Retreat (24).

Group hooping has also become an effective tool to bring people together for political purposes. For instance, a group of human rights activists have used hooping -“hula hooping”- as a way of attracting the media attention to their cause in Atlanta, Georgia in their annual demonstrations during the last several years. Another example is an organized demonstration held by a group of hoopers in front of the Las Vegas City Hall on August 18, 2010. They protested against the ban of hooping on the five-block pedestrian mall known as the Fremont Street Experience. Although the city had decided not to ban the hooping, the hoopers did their demonstrations anyway to attract the media attention to their cause. The issue came to the attention of the Los Vegas City Council when the business owners on the Fremont Street had complained to the city's authorities that, the group hooping obstructs traffic flow and causes public disruptions, which is bad for business (25).

Application of Hula Hoop in Psychological Research

Since late 1990s hula hoop has been used by some mental health professionals for research purposes in the fields of sports psychology, psychotherapy, and neuropsychology. In these studies hula hoop has been used as a tool for individual and group physical activities. The researchers showed that the application of hula hoop facilitated improvements in the participants’ following characteristics: brain’s bilateral Alpha Asymmetry and depressive symptoms(26). bilateral-body coordination, whole-body coordination (27), relational and social skills, self-acceptance, group acceptance, and group cohesion (28) (29).

REFERENCES

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2.^ Stevenson, R.W. (March 15, 1988). New York Times. Hula Hoop Is Coming Around Again.

3.^ Olson, J.S. (2000). Historical Dictionary of the 1950s. Greenwood Publishing Group.

4.^ Definition of hooper: www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hopper.

5.^ Johnston, B.H. (1995). The Manitous: The Supernatural World of the Ojibway. Key Porter Books Ltd.

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16.^ De Nies, Y. (October 21, 2009). Hula Hoops and Healthy Food. ABC News. Washington DC.

17.^ Kadinsky, S. (October 21, 2009). Michelle Obama Hula Hoops to Promote Kids' Health. CBS News.

18.^ Obama, M. (November 18, 2009). Remarks by the First Lady at Hollin Meadows School Visit. The White House, Office of the First Lady. www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks.

19.^ Wilson, D. (October 2006). The TV Commercial titled Hula Hoop by St Luke’s Advertising Agency Clarks School Shoes Company (USA). Released in the October 2006 in USA. Blink Productions Company, London, UK.

20.^ Dharma & Greg (Sep 21, 2009). Dharam & Greg TV Show ABC. www.tv.com/dharma-and-greg/show.

21.^ Kylie, N. (November 3, 2006). Heart FM Hula Hoop Girl Advertising Program. www.heart. Co.uk & www.hoopblast.co.uk/page4.

22.^ 20th Annual World Championship Hoop Dance Contest (2010). Heard Museum, Phoenix, AZ: February 13 & 14, 2010. www.heard.org/hoop/2010winners.

23.^ World Hoop Day (2010). World Hoop Day -Charity for Children (2010). October 10, 2010. www.worldhoopday.com.

24.^ HoopCamp Retreat (2010). HoopCamp Retreat: The Circular Circus September 30–October 3, 2010). www.hoopcampretreats.com.

25.^ Friess, S. (August 18, 2010). Las Vegas Considers Hula-Hoop Ban. www.aolnews.com/Team/steve-friess.

26.^ Shankman, S.; Tenke, C.; Bruder, G.; Durbin, C.; Hayden, E. & Klein, D. (2005). Low positive emotionality in young children: Association with EEG asymmetry. Development and Psychopathology, 17 (1): 85-98. ISSN: 823685251.

27.^ Ridgway, A.; Northup, J.; Pellegrin A.; LaRue, R. & Hightshoe, A. (2003). Effects of Recess on the Classroom Behavior of Children with and without Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. School Psychology Quarterly, 18 (3): 253-268. ISSN: 439762441.

28.^ Fisher, C. (2005). Team-Building Challenge Games. Washington Periodical: Heldref Publications, 37 (2): 79-84. ISSN: 995467341.

29.^ http://www.hellohoop.com/