Last year at FireDrums, I had a major life-changing event that ultimately resulted in me leaving my career. Spinning is very important to all of us here. So you'll understand why I've decided to take my life in a new direction more focused on the flow-arts. As far as I'm concerned at this point, my life is devoted to developing the flow-arts community. I think it has the potential to become a sign
ificant cultural movement in the performance arts (if it hasn't already) and has the power to inspire and empower the lives of thousands. So my friend Annie Guest and I started this company called "LanternSmith". We wanted to bring something new to the spinning scene...and more specifically, we wanted to bring something that reflects those things which spinning means most to us: Creativity, empowerment and community. LanternSmith will focus on community first and foremost. All of our custom fabricated materials will be built in-house or outsourced to other spinning-houses in an attempt to bring jobs to spinners around the country. Our props are going to take a different direction from the usual contenders of fire and electricity: Glow-in-the-dark compounds. LanternSmith is focusing on products that are completely self-illuminated without electricity or chemical reactions. Totally solid-state light emission from a new family of phosphorescent compounds discovered and refined in recent years. It is totally non-toxic or radioactive, never deteriorates, can take a charge millions of times without losing effectiveness. It glows many MANY times brighter and longer than the glow-in-the-dark materials we're all used to seeing in cheap toys and toothbrushes. In fact, it glows brighter than EL-wire (like a glowstick) after a full charge and gradually fades over a period of over 12-16 hours. We will supply products integrated with custom versions of the compound into everything the flow-arts community is accustomed to: rope, cord, sheet, plate, balls/spheres, staves, rods, handles...you name it...it can ALL glow brilliantly and uniformly. I chose this mainly because I want to bring four things to you:
1. Illuminated poi tethers for the tech-spinners. Pendulum poi are the go-to design standard now for tech spinning and I wanted to SEE the tether as it plays a significant role in the effects inherent to tech-spinning. This also goes for my other passion and creation of the Puppyhammer, which involves a lot of complex interactions between the yoke-cord and the upper-body. So LanternSmith developed a cable that glows like EL-Wire but doesn't take any electricity and is many thousand times more resilient and flexible.
2. Chill, eerie, meditative ambiance. The flow-arts community is made up of performers, so it's no question that brighter, louder, hotter, and more complex/extreme is usually perceived as being better. But the flow-arts movement is also about personal growth from within...learning how to learn, and how to balance one's self like we do with the props we spin; LanternSmith will be focusing on adding an emphasis to optimum introverted experience in addition to the already extroverted nature of our demographic.
3. Direct interactive creativity with the illumination of the prop. We spent most of our research and design phase refining the available ways in which spinners can charge the props. It uses UV light which can be built into many interesting and unique packages like laser pointers and a custom irradiating lamp designed and fabricated at LanternSmith. This is perhaps the most novel element of what we want to share with you: the ability to paint light in realtime directly onto your tool in unique and creative ways, even integrating them into your performances.
4. The Umoja universal-coupler system. The Umoja System is a design standard meant to bring all prop-companies together under one cross-compatible platform. It allows handles, spheres, tubes, rope, lights, controllers, etc...to all be modular with respect to one-another in a stable, strong and reliable way. It’s also designed to be easily built and is made entirely from inexpensive off-the-shelf components available in any local hardware store or online distributor. This means that Flowtoys’ ‘flowlights’ can fit onto our poi leashes. Trick Concepts’ glowpoi can be integrated into the ends of our staves, and YOU can make whatever you want and put it on any compatible tools available, including fire-tools. Umoja modules can also serve as a power-coupler to move electricity and/or digital commands through components...imagine poi handles with an integrated battery pack, pattern and color controls which feed data and power through the leash into the head. If any prop-makers are interested in joining the Umoja standard, just let us know and we’ll send you the specs and review tolerances and manufacturing techniques with you.
