Hoopin’ with Angela

Hoopin’ with Angela K. Moore

I first met Angela K. Moore when she began work as a cashier at Wheatsville Food Co-op in Austin three years ago. She had just enrolled at University of Texas after graduating from Round Rock High School just north of Austin.

Friendly, bright, lively and always dressed in a style uniquely Angela, she was open to talking about just about anything whenever I came through her register.

Angela, a quintesential hippie girl born too late for the 60s, once told me one of her favorite bands is Led Zeppelin. She proves it with a Zeppelin tattoo among the fanciful designs drawn on her body. After she went to the Bonnaroo Festival in the Tennessee mountains a couple years ago, I asked her what was the best show she saw there.  “I got to see Robert Plant,” she exclaimed.

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Angela K. Moore

She now works at the hospitality desk at Wheatsville – greeting folks as they enter our store and helping out with any questions or shopping problems they have.

Angela will soon leave Wheatsville and Austin for hopefully only awhile having recently graduated from UT with a bachelor’s degree in rhetoric and writing after only three years of study. Angela compiled nearly a year’s work of college academic credit before entering UT after taking several advance placement courses in high school. Many grants and scholarships allowed her to graduate debt free.

Her itinerary includes Northern California, Vancouver and Europe where she plans to work on an organic farm in France. Not bad for a woman who was never out of her home state of Texas for more than a couple days in her life until she recently spent a week vacationing in San Francisco.

Very impressive, eh? But, wait … there’s more.

at Clarks benefit

Angela is a unique performance artist who has been developing her skills as a hooper with a distinct imagination and flair for the past nine months. A blind date at the Tiniest Bar in Texas here in Austin sparked her interest in performing with hoops. The bar hosts an open stage for anyone who wants to hoop in front of folks every Wednesday and Angela’s blind date performed at the show.

Angela builds her own hoops out of PSI tubing that is made mostly for irrigation. Her collection now numbers 20 regular hoops and two fire hoops. The hoops are collapsible so she can take some with her on her world travels. To see someone four-foot, 10.5 inches tall keeping two hoops circling her lithe body around and around – again and again – with delight and imagination is simply marvelous.

Angela The Elf at the Wheatsville hospitality desk

The fire hoops include six cones that are filled with camp fuel or white gas. Light the cone’s wick and it will burn in flames for a few minutes as she twirls the hoop or two hoops rhythmically around her body with the grace and expression of a modern dancer. Using lamp oil will extend the flame to four or five minutes life but it tends to clog the cones, she reports.

in the Carousel Lounge parking lot after Wheats-Fest One

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I have seen Angela hooping at four Wheatsville parties in recent months. No fire allowed at fellow staffer Susan’s Drag B-Day party at Charlie’s bar in May and at the end of a “Wheats-Fest One” July show at the Carousel Lounge that showcased three Wheatsville bands. Angela could bring out the fire hoops at fellow staffer Rachel’s B-Day party held in her backyard and during the Wheatsville benefit to help pay dental expenses for deli staffer Clark at Cheer Up, Charlie’s bar in East Austin. Photos of all shows are on the Bob Kinney facebook.

topping all other performers at Clarks Grill Benefit

Several hoopers performed during Clark’s Grill benefit party but Angela clearly towered above all other artists … by far!

I can imagine Angela soon twirling her hoops at the base of sunset-washed Mount Shasta, hooping it within a crowd of new fans on a Paris street corner or with appreciative fellow French organic farm workers circling her as Angela hoops though the plowed farmland.

Hoop On, Angela!

Note from Bob — Since posting this blog about Angela, the good folks at hooping.org, an international hooping website, picked up this blog and linked it on their website. Thanks!

Another Note from Bob — Angela came back to Austin in late fall 2010. “I realized Austin is better than anywhere I went. So I came back and am applying to grad school for next academic year,” she said while working again at Wheatsville. Sure is nice seeing you again, Angela.

Angela hooping during her Wheatsville Farewell Party August 13

Adios (for now), Angela

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