UNC group hula hoops for exercise, enjoyment

Some UNC students pride themselves on being adults, but for the Carolina Hula Hoopers, returning to the simple pleasures of childhood has been the most fun part of college.

The student group was created last spring by then-senior Gigi Nemeroff, who decided that Carrboro’s burgeoning hooping scene needed a home on UNC’s campus.

Nemeroff said she began hoop dancing after being exposed to “fire hooping,” a hula hooping style where performers use a hoop that has been doused in lighter fluid and set on fire, in her hometown of Atlanta.

She initially started hooping because she was inspired by that performance, but then continued practicing because of its health and exercise benefits.

“I never really liked running or riding a bike, but I found this as a good way to work out,” Nemeroff said.

When she came to Chapel Hill, she found a nearby community that not only supported hooping as a creative form, but also enhanced it with classes and workshops.

“I quickly learned that Carrboro is a hula hooping mecca,” Nemeroff said.

“But there wasn’t that same community for UNC students, and I wanted to do something about it.”

After hooping on the quad with a sign that read, “Come Hoop with Me!” Nemeroff attracted a number of students interested in joining the group.

“One day, I saw this crazy kid hula hooping on the quad with a giant sign, and I just went over and started talking to her,” said senior biology major Michelle Swanson, the group’s current president.

Since last fall, the Carolina Hula Hoopers has become an official student organization, practicing both outdoors and in dance studios on campus.

“Whenever we’re out on the quad, we bring extra hoops intentionally so more people can join us,” Swanson said.

“We really want people to come join and just have fun with us.”

The group has not yet applied for funding from Student Congress, but Swanson said the group would like to have some funds to buy new hoops, as well as tape to decorate hoops.

Swanson also said the group hopes to eventually expand by performing in the Pit and having a hooping social for undergraduate students.

Students in the Carolina Hula Hoopers said they found it a fun way to work out and dance, while also being a part of a social group.

“The hula hooping community is full of some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. It’s a quirky, weird, open-minded bunch,” Nemeroff said.

In addition to hula hooping on campus, group members sometimes travel to Weaver Street Market in Carrboro, where a large hula hooping community is still thriving.

Summer workshops, hula hooping festivals and instructional classes provide support for hoop dancers in the area, but graduate student Sam Isenberg said the UNC students have another, different goal than many of the hoopers in Carrboro.

“I think we’re more silly and social, and we teach each other new tricks, mostly off of YouTube or something we just stumbled upon when we’re messing around with the hoops,” she said.

Isenberg said that instead of focusing on meditation and spirituality like some Carrboro groups do, the UNC group emphasizes having fun and letting loose.

“That feeling you get when you’re in it — it’s so great,” Isenberg said.

“It’s like you have to have a smile on your face. You can’t help it.”

arts@dailytarheel.com