Taken inside the catacombs of abandoned communist mines ….
Photographs by Evgeny Chibilev, from the times of Stalin’s Gulags.
Yep - as regular MoM commenter MCP points out - we are posting ancient stuff. We found that we have over 150 half written drafts, time for some spring cleaning.
The number one, one-hit wonder kiwi music video, of all times.
Traditional Maori poi in a poptastic 80’s style, complete with white glove bodypopping and roller skating.
You want details?
I have three main influences in my poi spinning/manipulation. They are; Boogaloo Dance, Rob Thorburn, and Ronan McLoughlin.
Here we get to see two of them in one video! and as an added bonus, the gorgeous Maelle from France joins Rob and Ronan in Cork after the circus festival Ireland for some spinning fun. Clean and beautiful patterns from Maelle, the mind Boggling trickery we’ve come to expect from Rob, and, well… Ronan.
And yes, Ronan is really doing that with the poi. You should have seen his show in Berlin…
We met Manne at the CJC in Rennes. Well, I didn’t, I met him a week later.
We think he rocks. With the way that he is combining juggling and breakdance, this guy is definitely one to watch.
A highly skilled fire/uv company based in Vienna. Find out more about them here: www.fenfire.at
In May 2007, I had the pleasure of working with them on their innovative new UV show; LUMOTEK UV-3000. This full-length UV performance was conceptualized as a machine; the pieces locking into place on stage and whirring, clicking and spinning in perfect mechanical harmony.
The promo vid for LUMOTEK can be seen here
lumen_trailer_07
Nico from Compagnie Lumen (Switzerland) mailed MoM to tell us of their new show.
Juggling, Manipulation, Swinging, Diabolo, Contact, Multiball, Balls Clubs, Movement, Glow and cool music too!
The skill level is high, including the club juggling of Mariano a phenomenally smooth freestyle club juggler.
More Videos and photos on their site, including this cool, Contact Show which is my current candidate for a best online video to answer the question “What is Contact Juggling?”
After watching this, I don’t think we can call it ‘Poi Spinning’ anymore…
Loads of Negative space, weird tangles, throws, and even footcatches with poi, all put together in a nice three and a half minute montage with a very fun feel to it. To quote Rob: “filling in a few of the gaps from ‘more spinach please’”. If that’s just a few of the gaps, then DAMN!!!
I really admire this man’s creativity. Please sir, can I have some more?
www.uberevents.org is where Rob can mostly be found…
I like Poi.
But, it’s hard to find videos are go beyond spinning the same tricks as every other video, over and over. But, they do exist.
In this Video, Paul ‘Durbs’ Durbin shows us many advanced patterns, polyrhythm timing, and cool effects you can get with adding in pendulum swings in various places… there’s even some contact poi in there as well.
Durbs also shows us nice ways of mixing Glides with Poi spinning. This video is well worth a watch. however, for you die hard Contact and popping fans (Ryan 
) it’s about five minutes of Spinning (Paul knows a lot of Spinning) with zero contact juggling. I like this video.
Paul is part of Burnt Toast, a group of fire performers based in Guildford.
Youtube link: More Spinach Please
Rob ‘Bluecat’ Thorburn, Gives us a taste of geek with a new Poi spinning video. I like Rob. i like his spinning too.
At Bristol juggling Convention, he was able to astonish a group of jugglers (Including Jea9) with his poi spinning. Rob is one of the most innovative poi spinners I know, with a zest for the uber geeky, and the uber silly.
This video explores a lot of negative space concepts with poi, along with some silly tangles as well. The video was shot at 6am in Salzburg Train Station (Why he couldn’t use his own back garden like most other spinners, I don’t know). Hopefully videos like this shall bring about a more technical wave with regards to Poi spinning, and show to people: hey! they do more than just make pretty circles!
I love Rob (platonically).
Check out more of Rob’s activities at www.uberevents.org
It’s FRRRREEEEEEZing here in London, so here’s some fire to warm things up:
Flame Oz Website
One of the slickest and most professional troupe of fire performers on the planet, with Staff, Poi, fire fingers and a healthy dose of cheese and fun too 
they also featuring crystal ball contact from Dimitri
Thanks to Dave Knox for the link.
Before MoM I had another video blog! well thats a bit of a grand term, its really just a thread on home of poi.
It now has links to over 400 (mostly juggling and manipulation) videos.
The original aim of that listing was to post the highest quality manipulation with an emphasis on staff and poi - well it is HOP.
But soon, it became, any high quality online manipulation videos.
Then it became any high quality online videos that I liked.
Now its decayed into a free for all, so now it seems everyone posts anything that slightly amused them.
and then they have mock arguments about it… Ahh bless, love them all to pieces.
If you want to kill some time, a lot of time and see some great videos, head over to HOP.
(Tip: for a long time I used 3 angel smilies so that it was easy to find my posts with video links while scrolling the thread.)
excellent work!!