Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lee Nangeroni. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lee, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
LaLoopna Hoops was founded for a wide variety of reasons, the simplest being that I had discovered a love of hula hooping, and I wanted to do something with it. But over the years my mission and motivation has shifted, expanded, and evolved for a myriad of reasons. It certainly has been an incredible journey.
My story as a hula hooper began long before I ever had the idea to found a performance company. In the summer of 2012, I attended my very first music festival in New York. To put it simply, it was honestly a miserable experience. Not because of the event itself, but because of who I attended with. Skipping over the extraneous details, that was the first time I saw hula hooping as a flow art. I was absolutely entranced. The movement was so beautiful, looked so free, so joyous, and I really wanted to learn. That weekend, I bought my very first hoop. I had absolutely no idea was I was doing. I bought a hoop based on aesthetic appeal, not knowing it was way too small for me. That weekend I taught myself several basic tricks, that I had no names for. Years later, I would learn that I had figured out a forwards weave, lasso, and stir the pot.
After that, I almost never picked up a hoop for almost 3 years. I’d dabble on occasion, but never put any true effort into it. Any attempts to learn on body hooping utterly failed, because at the time, I had no idea that my hoop was much too small for me. But I held on to the idea that I wanted to learn. I remember in the winter of 2013, I saw a video on youtube from Rachael Lust, hooping to Macklemore’s Thrift Shop. Again, I was entranced. All I could think was, “I wanna do that.” But I let it lie, and didn’t pursue it.
Fast forward to the summer of 2015 when I completely up ended my life to leave an abusive relationship. It was a particularly dark time for me. I had moved home to my parents’ and was slowly starting to process the trauma I had survived. I had never felt so low before. My self esteem was in tatters, my confidence was at an all time low. My abuser had systematically broken me down for two and a half years, and I was trying to figure out how to heal, how to restart and rebuild everything he had taken from me. During this time, I decided to take a road trip out to California to visit family. Little did I know how this trip would change the trajectory of my life.
I drove out to California by myself, having plotted KOAs along the route where I could camp. 5 days out, a week there, 5 days back. It was an absolutely incredible trip, and it helped me begin to reconnect with who I was, and who I wanted to be. On this trip, I met my younger half sister for the first time, and she was the one who really helped me light the fire. You see, my sister is also a hula hooper. And she is incredible! To this day, I watch her flow and I am absolutely mesmerized.
The night we hung out, she had her LED hoops with her. I watched her flow, and once again, all I could think was, “I wanna do that.” That night she taught me several tricks and even let me play with one of her LED hoops. I thought to myself, “Well if she can do it, I can!” That night, the seeds that would eventually grow to be LaLoopna Hoops were planted.
I got back home, and threw myself headfirst into hooping. With my sister’s help, I started researching tutorials, and learning what kind of hoops I would need to learn and grow. I didn’t have a job at the time, and I used the summer to relax and throw myself headfirst into hooping. That first summer I spent anywhere between and hour and 6 hours a day practicing! I ate, slept, breathed hoops. I never went anywhere without one.
That year I created my first instagram account, dubbing myself LaLoopna Hoops. February of 2016, I started frequenting a local bar on Saturday nights, and I was thrilled when they let me bring my hoops on the dance floor. Every weekend I was there, hooping for hours and practicing my craft. And all that hard work paid off. A year after I had started hooping, I achieved a sponsorship with Cosmic Vibrations, a hoop company out of West Virginia. LaLoopna Hoops’ mission became promoting the stunning hoops created by my sponsor.
As I progressed and networked with other flow artists, I started to explore other aspects of flow arts. I began dabbling in other props, started to learn how to spin fire, and even took stilt walking lessons, buying my first ever pair of peg stilts. Given that I had grown up in musical theater, performing came naturally, so I started to attempt to offer various local performances. But I didn’t dedicate much effort to the pursuit.
By 2017, I had decided I wanted to learn to teach. In two years, I had learned so much from other hoopers on instagram and youtube, consuming tutorials at a rapid pace. I even dabbled in creating a few of my own. I was ready to start sharing what I had learned. After all, hooping had changed my life in ways I never could have imagined. It had helped my find my joy, and relearn how to love myself. I wanted to help spread that joy. So I enrolled in Deanne Love’s Hoop Love Coach program. By the fall of 2017, I had achieved my certification, and officially founded LaLoopna Hoops as a DBA. This is when the first official iteration of my mission came to be: I would help others discover the freedom and joy hooping could bring, and help them reconnect with their confidence and their inner child.
To this day, I absolutely adore teaching. I love watching my students have that lightbulb moment, when a new trick finally clicks. I love getting to be a part of that joy, that confidence. But after several attempts to host workshops and class series at local rec centers and fitness centers, I realized that unfortunately in my area, there wasn’t a lot of demand for what I was offering. People were interested, but as each session went on, attendance would dwindle, until I had maybe one or two dedicated students who would show up to every class. I gave them my all, and glowed with pride to watch them grow, but I had to eventually accept that at least for now, this wasn’t my path. So in 2019, I decided to try performing.
In 2019 I auditioned for the Massachusetts Renaissance Faire. My love of ren faires came from my childhood, when I attended my first one around the age of nine with a friend and her family. I remember the feeling of absolute wonder, looking at the performers and thinking to myself, “I wanna do that!” (Are we noticing a theme here?) I wanted to be a part of the magic, but I never quite knew how to go about it. Then at the age of 29, I finally figured it out. I was going to be a hula hoop and stilt performer at renaissance faires. I was over the moon when I was unexpectedly offered the opportunity to have my own stage show. Thus Selena the Sorceress was born, and my mission once again shifted. As I decided what kind of performer I wanted to be, LaLoopna Hoops’s mission evolved to sharing the magic of flow with audiences, and helping them believe in what I call everyday magic, the magic and joy and wonder we all carry inside.
Since 2019, LaLoopna Hoops has continued to grow and evolve as a performance company. I have been honored to perform with the Massachusetts Renaissance Faire, the Cape Cod Pirate Festival, Jewelry City Steampunk Festival, the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire, the Deerfield Fair, the Quechee Balloon Festival and the New Hampshire Rainbow Girls, bringing flow arts to new audiences and encouraging them to reconnect with their inner children, their own inner magic. As I have connected with fans and helped inspire their own journeys, it became a part of my mission to inspire the next generation of performers. I will never forget what it felt like to be a kid, taking in a fantastical world made possible by performers, and wanting to be a part of it. I want to encourage that same joy in passion in children. I was very fortunate to have adults in my life who encouraged me to pursue my dreams, and I want to help do the same for everyone who crosses my path.
When I first picked up a hula hoop, I never could have imagined where a plastic circle could take me, or the ways it would change my life. This summer will mark a decade on this crazy, astounding path, and I am so grateful for all the life changing experiences I’ve had, and all the incredible people I have met along the way. As I have evolved and grown, so has my mission, and I can hardly see where my circles will continue to take me!
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
My name is Lee Nangeroni, and I am the founder of LaLoopna Hoops, a variety performance company based in Sunapee, NH.
If someone told me when I was a child that I would travel New England in a Honda Civic stuffed to the gills with hula hoops, fire props and stilts, getting paid to perform at a wide variety of ren faires and events, I probably would have thought they were crazy. Not because of the performance aspect, but who gets paid to play with hula hoops? Well, I do.
I always wanted to be a performer. When I was in first grade, my school took a solo in the Christmas pageant away from an eighth grader and gave it to me, cause I knew the lyrics and she didn’t. I was the child the adults had to explain the concept of stage fright to, because it made no sense to me. Why I would I be afraid? I couldn’t fathom it. Being on stage was as easy as breathing.
Growing up, it was always my dream to grow up to be on Broadway. I grew up on the classics, Rogers and Hammerstein, Andrew Llyod Webber, and many, many more. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad belting along to “Time to Say Goodbye,” by Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman. Music was always a part of my home life. I was in dance and piano lessons by preschool. Music was so interwoven with who I was, and performing came naturally to me. My elementary and middle school performances included lead roles in Fiddler on the Roof, Bye Bye Birdie, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I was the annoying kid who knew everyone else’s lines, as well as my own, so of course I was going to grow up to work in theater. At 16 and 17, I was on a dance competition team, and in the summers I was a Junior Intern with the New London Barn Playhouse, performing children’s theater, writing our own original songs, building sets and working tech for the main stage evening shows. Theater wasn’t just something I loved, it was a part of me.
But, life had other plans. In college, I decided to pursue a BA in English, and I drifted further and further away from theater. While it never stopped being a part of who I was, I had so many other responsibilities, I never seemed to have the time to dedicate to it. By the age of 25, I hadn’t been in a performance in years. It felt like I had missed my chance, and lost a massive part of who I was. But then, hula hooping came into my life.
I never expected to turn it into a business. I was just trying to rediscover my confidence, find some joy after a really dark time in my life. But before long, I was hooping in public. And the more I did it, the more I found that people complimented me on it. They thought it was cool and different. And then I found out that other hoopers performed, and there were more than just hoops out there. I started to dabble in other props, and followed them into fire spinning, and stilt walking. The more I learned and progressed, the more I realized there were niches where my passion could not only survive, it could thrive. And LaLoopna Hoops was born.
Today I offer hula hoop, LED, fire, and stilt walking performances. I am a certified coach and offer private lessons, workshops, classes and birthday parties. In the past year, I’ve also added tarot and oracle readings to my offerings. As I have continued to grow and evolve, LaLoopna Hoops has grown with me.
I feel my background in theater and my passion for teaching has really helped me distinguish myself as a performer. I don’t only showcase my skills, but I encourage people to learn, to play, and reconnect with their inner child. My stage shows are 10% prewritten jokes, and 90% improv, allowing me to truly engage and connect with my audiences. I’ve even done shows with organizations that allowed me to sprinkle in motivational speaking, encouraging young women to find their voices, and create support networks for those around them. What I do has evolved past hooping into creating human connections that help us find our strength and our joy. And all because I thought it would be fun to learn how to manipulate a plastic circle!
Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?
Not long after I started performing, I made a huge mistake that I thought could possibly destroy my reputation, and I was beside myself. Through cold calling, I had created a relationship with a rather famous venue in my state. I was absolutely thrilled, and had a fantastic July 4th performance with them. I remember watching the fireworks at the end of the night thinking, “I can’t believe this is real. I made this happen. I just got paid to play with hula hoops!”
Shortly after, the venue booked another event with me. I was delighted! We negotiated a performance, chose a costume and theme, and I was all set to go. It was during a long weekend, so in the days before the performance, I went to visit some friends who lived about 4 hours away. I figured I could spend Friday and Saturday night with them, drive back on Sunday, and go to the performance on Monday.
Well, Sunday morning rolled around, and I was starting to feel unwell. It was like I had been hit by a bus. I was starting to develop a sore throat, and I was exhausted. I loaded up the car, and started the long drive home, but about halfway there, I was so exhausted, I pulled over to rest in a parking lot in the mountains of Vermont. After a few hour nap, I woke up feeling even worse. I was developing a fever, and to my horror, my car refused to start! So, I called AAA. As I was waiting for the tow truck to come give me a jump start, my day got even worse.
I had received a message from the venue, asking where I was. Why had I missed the performance? I was HORRIFIED. You see, because the performance was scheduled for Labor Day weekend, I had mistakenly thought the performance was on Labor Day, completely missing the date of Sunday, September 1st in the emails, not Monday September 2nd. I was absolutely beside myself. I had worked so hard to build this relationship, and with one stupid mistake, I had decimated it.
I immediately sent an apology, offering a full refund and a performance of similar value free of charge at another time in order to make amends. I didn’t make excuses, or try to justify what had happened. I simply owned my mistake, and offered what I could to rectify the situation. I would have completely understood if they never wanted to work with me again. I was careless, and I would face the consequences, even though it felt like I had a massive lump of lead in my stomach. Not to mention that night I ended up in the ER with strep throat.
But miracle of miracles, the venue accepted my apology. I mailed the payment back first thing Tuesday morning, and we planned the complimentary performance, which thankfully went off without a hitch. They even booked another performance after that one, which also went well. While I have not worked with this venue again since before covid, I was so relieved that I was able to salvage the relationship after my careless mistake. The whole experience taught me to slow down and pay careful attention to every single detail.
Running a business by yourself, on top of working a full time job, is far from easy. I am my own agent, costume designer, makeup artist, roadie, social media/marketing manager, and accountant, on top of performing. When you have that many responsibilities, sooner or later, mistakes are bound to happen. I’m very thankful I had this experience early in my performance career, because while it was absolutely horrible to live through, it taught me so much about what it would take to pursue this path, and about myself. Looking back on it now, I am so proud of the way I handled my mistake, and how much it helped me grow through the experience.
Any advice for growing your clientele? What’s been most effective for you?
Because I hold a full time job as well as run my company, time is a limited and valuable resource for me. My most effective strategies for growing my clientele have been cold calling, being professional, and giving my all to every single performance.
Some of my biggest gigs came from cold calling or cold auditioning with an event. In 2019, I auditioned to join the cast of the Massachusetts Renaissance Faire. I had learned about them on facebook, and found out they were hosting auditions, so I signed up. I drove almost two hours one morning before work to the audition. During the process, I mentioned I was a hooper, and I was developing my own stage show. The panel was intrigued, and asked if I had anything from the show I could perform for them. At that point, all I had were a few jokes and my hoop skills, but I gave it my all.
A few hours later, I was in the parking lot at work waiting for my shift to start, and I had an email from the Massachusetts Renaissance Faire. They thanked me for my time, but unfortunately the cast was full. But, would I like to have my own thirty minute show, with multiple performances a day? I was over the moon! I then performed with them from 2019 to 2021.
I had a similar experience with the Cape Cod Pirate Festival. I drove two and half hours to Boston one way to audition for an event I had never heard of before. I arrived armed with a monologue I had re-memorized in two weeks, had two songs prepared, a resume and headshot, along with some of my best bits from my show. That year they had already fully booked their stage performers, but offered me a slot in their village cast, which included stage combat training, as well as the ability to perform my show at a discounted rate. Not only did this event provide me with valuable new skills and experience, but I have performed with them as a paid performer in the two years since, and last season also ran a tarot booth.
One of my favorite connections came from performing with the New Hampshire Renaissance Faire in 2022. It was my first year performing with them, and I was so excited. I was only doing one show a day, but it was an absolutely incredible experience. During one of my shows, I pulled a young boy on stage for one of my audience participation bits. He had so much fun, he and his mom came up to talk to me after the show, and he was ecstatic to discover I offered birthday parties. Four months later, I performed at his birthday party. Prior to the performance, I virtually met with him and his mom to help him learn how to pick out a hula hoop so he could start to practice. The day of, I arrived to find a special home made sign waiting for me that read, “LaLoopna Hoops parking only.” I was so touched, I swear my heart could have exploded from joy. And the performance was fantastic. I performed, taught a short workshop, and also taught the kids to make home made practice poi. And the review his mom left afterward almost made me cry:
“We had Lee from LaLoopna Hoops perform at my son’s 9th birthday party. I can sum it up with his statement at the end of the day, “My best gift didn’t come in a box or a bag it came as a person, Lee”. We first saw LaLoopna Hoops at the NH Renaissance Fair and my son was fascinated. When we learned that birthday parties were an option we reached out. I had never hired a performer before. Throughout the careful planning and coordinating Lee kept in regular contact making the process easy and fun. Bringing LaLoopna Hoops to the party was not just hiring a performer, it was a whole experience of bringing magic into the everyday. She doesn’t just perform she helps all the children learn different skills and she shares her joy with all in attendance. Her play area for the kids was extensive with so many different hoops and she taught them to make and spin Poi as well. As a parent and a teacher I would highly recommend LaLoopna Hoops for a party or school event.”
Her recommendation later lead to other performances in her area. All because I took the time to play and connect with a random kid at an event. Kindness and professionalism is key. Let your mission, your talent and passion shine, and the right opportunities will find you. Don’t be afraid to take calculated risks, because you can’t begin to imagine where the smallest interaction might lead you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.laloopnahoops.com
- Instagram: @laloopnahoops
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LaLoopnaHoops/
Image Credits
@wehoggard
Bob Plant Photography
Jessica May Photography
Potbelly Photography
229 Photography