Marawa is the UKs most prominent hula-hooper. With a Somali/Australian background, she is now settled in Hackney and forging a career in burlesque and cabaret. When she was on Britains Got Talent, Simon Cowell told her that she would be booked forever, but shes got a bigger ambitions - to be a hula-hooping tycoon.
1000 LONDONERS
This film is part of 1000 Londoners, a five-year digital project which aims to create a digital portrait of a city through 1000 of the people who identify themselves with it. The profile contains a 3 minute film that gives an insight into the life of the Londoner, as well as their personal photos of London and some answers to crucial questions about their views on London life. Over the course of the project we aim to reveal as many facets of the capital as possible, seeing city life from 1000 points of view.
Twitter @1000_londoners
1000 Londoners is produced by South London based film production company and social enterprise, Chocolate Films. The filmmakers from Chocolate Films will be both
producing the films and providing opportunities to young people and community groups to make their own short documentaries, which will contribute to the 1000 films. Visit
Transcript:
Hula-hoops come in lots of different colours but they look their best when theyre taped in super sparkly, shiny or glitterly tapes. Weve been getting lots of secret boyfriend orders: My girlfriend comes to your hoop class. Do you know which hoops she wants? Do you know which colours she wants?. So Ive been doing some guessing but look, this is where I spend my spare time, googling the world of tapes, plastics, polypropylene suppliers but its definitely not the future. There needs to be a better system. Im constantly trying to find someone that can tape them. Actually, theres a prison up north and the prisoners apparently are very good at doing crafty little bits of handy work. These are wicks for a fire hoop, and people love fire hoops! I hate fire hoops. Edwin! Sorry, this is the guy from the prison. Hello Edwin. Ill give you the tape and Ill give you the hoops. Oh my goodness, this would be brilliant. Thanks Edwin. Prison taping.
So I do a six to seven minute hula-hooping act, which involves me and about seventy to eighty hoops by the end of the performance. Start with one and work my way up. Had a few circus friends that had come over here on their two year working holiday visa and they were like, theres so much work, you have to come to the U.K.. Ive hooped at St. James Palace, that was very nice. The Hippodrome in London we were at for six months before it got turned into a casino. Places like Hoxton Hall and Wiltons musical and Shoreditch town hall and places like that, when they have shows in London, are really beautiful. You dont have to gather at the back, this isnt a boxing ring. Push, push push! Faster, faster, faster! This year I started doing a lot more teaching than I had been. One, two, three, just the push. Ive been wanting to do it for a long time and its really hard if youre travelling all the time with shows. Weve kind of truned it into a little bit of an aerobics class, kind of like a zumba for hula-hoops. And up on your toes. Theres always this really nice moment when people, especially people that dont think or know theyre coming to a class and have been roped in by their friends and theyde be like Come on! and then theyre like No I cant do it. But then once youve convinced them to give it a go and theyre like alright, alright and then they give it a go and to their amazement they can do it. And everyone just has that moment where theyre like Oh my god, Im five years old again, everythings fine.
