Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lola Loops. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Lola , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I had no movement skills from my youth. My fitness came from sports— I played rugby throughout high school and college. I had no mind body connection in a dance or circus aspect. I learnt how to hula hoop in my backyard in Vancouver in my mid-twenties a decade ago, hanging out with other hula hoopers and flow artists socially in my local community, attending jams and workshops. I originally started spinning poi, then realized that it was very hard after hitting myself a bunch of times. I then went to a music festival and saw someone hula hooping, was mesmerized and just knew I had to do it. So I went on Craigslist to purchase a hula hoop, and I purchased it out of a girl’s van.

Having a mentor really helped. For me, meeting Alley Oop was a turning point, as she became my teacher and best friend. She had a circus studio called Sideshow Studios (R.I.P) and I took a performance progressive series with her, and then from their spiralled into other forms of movement. After I realized the movement my body made with the hula hoop— how it was different and nonlinear, in spiral form— I knew I wanted to explore more. So then I started training in dance also, and now I blend the two, and train the two.

What could I have done to speed up learning process?

I could have started training much earlier than I did, But if I had, I may not have the education I do now. I wear many hats, like event managing, which I went to College for. And this informs the variety of performance contexts and communities I perform in, as I had cultivated a vast personal and professional network prior to developing my movement practise and circus skills. In hindsight I could have understood sooner the connections between circus arts and contemporary dance movement. Rather than training circus first exclusively for a few years before taking up dance training regularly, I could have done both simultaneously sooner and integrated them at an earlier stage in my repertoire development.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers

I’ve become an independent artist entrepreneur organically over the past decade, as I’ve cultivated my circus arts and dance movement training practices along with the professional and social networks in which I market and provide my services as a performer and creative producer. After training as a rugby player at school, I began dance movement and hula hoop-based circus arts training in my twenties. I have a post secondary education in Business, Tourism & Event Management , have worked in the hospitality, travel and entertainment industries throughout my adult life while balancing my creative projects. I currently work as Assistant Event Producer/Production Manger, I am part of two local dance collectives, and work with Bass Coast Music Festival’s street team.

What sets me apart is this unique mix of skills and connections I bring together through my work and community. The offerings I provide are specific enough to be described in detail so as to deliver as expected, while flexible enough to adapt to a wide variety of contexts. For example as a hula hoop performer, with the same repertoire of movement and set of props I am able to cater to diverse audiences through my choice of character, costume and choreography with accompanying music and visuals. I offer short 4-10 minute stage performances as variety acts for theatrical shows with seated audiences, as well as repeated or roaming performances for longer time periods or at intervals.

I negotiate my rates based on training time required, use of special props for example, travel time, audience, budget, duration and number of performances. Everything needs to be flexible and negotiable to maintain the variety of gigs that are a part of my lifestyle and creative practise.

I think the problems I solve for my clients are many:

I’m dependable, reliable, professional, experienced. As an event producer, I understand the business relationship from the side of those booking me, so I’m able to cater well to clients in the services and communication I provide.

As a variety act, I can help to break up a really focused group show with a contrasting wow moment.

As a roamer, I’m able to solve the issue of audience engagement through my interactive performances moving around venues and exhibition grounds. With my experience as a festival-goer, I understand the experience from the audience’s side and know I’m able to provide magic moments that audiences will remember.

I provide clients with lasting marketing materials through documentation of my performances. Many of my performances and costumes become iconic marketing memories images used repeatedly by clients in their community social media. If you want a brand-defining creative moment involving a movement artist in full character making magic happen at your event, I provide that time and time again.

Increasingly I solve clients’ diversity and inclusion intentions. As a woman with mixed ancestry and ambiguous ethnicity I am visibly POC with Laotian, Chilean , European, Chinese and Indigenous background and appearance.

I think what I’m most proud of is my full-service character work that adapts my performance to the specific situation. I do my own styling and work with costume designers and makeup artists to achieve custom iconic looks, and present these with custom choreography and curated music and visuals. I’m pro and I put on a good show!

There is really no one else operating in my region with my range of skills and talents, and my unique range of performance contexts. There are other great artists with their own constellations of characters and talents, but the thing I want people to understand about working with an independent artist like me is that you’re hiring a one-of-one, offering unique audience experiences. I’m not a paint-by-numbers diversity hire to fill a quota of visible minority performers, or just another pretty performer to gaze at for a few moments of entertaining escapism – I’m a full-service creative entrepreneur with a full spectrum of characters and performances to offer for special audiences and events.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

What’s really driving my motivation at this point in my career is collaboration and creating shows that are meaningful. It’s important and inspiring to break the status quo, making change in people’s perceptions and preconceptions of body image and representation and what can be seen in circus arts. I need to be the change I want to see, and that our more inclusive society wants to see in contemporary culture in general, and the circus arts specifically – which is for a more diverse and representative embodiment of the culture.

How did you build your audience on social media?

I made a conscious choice when I joined Instagram, to keep my account private and grow to my first 1,000 followers only with people I knew. That took a couple years, and could have happened faster if I’d been public from the start – but I’m glad with this choice because I value each connection as a relationship rather than simply an audience I’m marketing to. That’s seen as one of the authentic values of being a nano influencer with under 10,000 followers, is that each follower represents more of a direct relationship with genuine personal/brand engagement.

I have 2,400 followers, which has taken me more than 5 years to grow. While modest compared to other artists in the contemporary dance / circus arts space who have made influencer business more of a focal point of their entrepreneurship, or who live in countries with more people, my following is enough to generate regular gigs, and maintain inspiration and information from a variety of sources relevant to me.

I receive direct message inquiries with brand partnership opportunities regularly from accounts that want me to represent their products in exchange for discounts, and I am very selective about which I accept so as to be as authentic as possible in how how I represent myself and the brand. I value being mindful of the content I curate for my profile as it remains an archived representation of my personal, creative and professional growth. When I feel a strong affinity for the brand and the people behind it and actually use the product, then it can appear authentically in my content as an arts/lifestyle placement, rather than seeming like just a paid promotion.

I’d recommend to anyone starting out growing their social media, to know why you’re using it the way you choose to. It’s a choice. It’s also a construct, it’s not real, and if the internet were to disappear, would you still have those relationships? If you want to follow my approach, I would advise not to place quantity-based goals for audience and engagement, ahead of your own brand authenticity and personal capacity to maintain real collaborative relationships and mutually-inspirational social networks. While still hustling those relationships you do make and maintain on social media, to support yourself and your entrepreneurship and your creative community.

On a practical level, I would say making a habit of using the new tools and app updates to keep current with trends on evolving platforms is important, without losing your focus. For example rather than trying to keep active accounts on multiple platforms simultaneously, I have maintained an IG account and developed my use of it’s features to become more of an advanced user. I know from experience that with consistent use, my network grows, and I receive a regular amount of engagement and opportunities from it that is at my capacity in terms of how many gigs and projects I can take on at any given time. I post stories regularly, tag collaborators in my content, and share posts and reels with an editorial approach to curating my wall. I recommend tracking your analytics, as it’s an ever-evolving game to keep track of how the algorithms prioritize different content in different ways – for example I enjoy tracking which songs I choose to accompany my movement videos, generate more views to my IG reels based on what tracks are trending in IG music that are still authentic to my personality and brand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lolaloops3.wixsite.com/lola
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lolaloops3/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Lola-Loops-284971598181832
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lolaloops1377

Image Credits
Millissa Martin Photography Iris Hollow Photo Fubarfhoto Joffrey Photo Diane Smithers Photography