Welcome to the World of Flow Arts

Hi everyone, welcome to the newsletter 2.0 or reading this post on the new blog. After many years of streaming Flow Arts content on Twitch it is time to take a different turn. Via this blog and newsletter I’m going to document the world of Flow Arts through my own experiences and through interviews with the people I meet. This way everyone can see the content whenever they want and we won’t be limited by the pressure of being there when I’m live.

My journey starts at the Bali Flow Temple where I’m currently writing from. I’m on a journey to become a double levi wand master and get inspired for my artistic journey. I’ve been feeling that I need a reset on my whole being. Last year I struggled with an injury that shifted everything for me. As much as it hurt and threw me off I’m also grateful in a way. Because of the injury I started DJing and changing up my content and life. All my content was directly pointed towards me practicing and performing Flow Arts. I pointed all the content directly on myself and my personal life and over the last year I noticed a shift, I don’t want to make it so personal anymore. I want it to be about Flow Arts and the world that revolves around it, so the idea for this series was born. Since I’m a Flow Artist for 6 years I will share my own journey as a performer to give insight on how this works and goes as well as interview people and document places that revolve around Flow Arts.

So here I am at the Bali Flow Temple, searching for the words to write and the content to share. The priority for me here is to master the double levi wand. As a performer for many years now I’ve done a lot of different shows where I mainly freestyled with my props or danced choreographies from the Luminosity Fire show team. Last year when I joined Holland Got Talent I made my first act and after that my first LED solo show. Putting an act together was an interesting process for me, now I had to think about all the aspects instead of just going with the flow. What do I want to say with my act? What do I want my audience to experience watching it? What costume fits with it, what music, what hair, make-up, lighting and props? There are many things to consider making a show. The one thing I knew for sure was that I wouldn’t think about what kind of event I wanted to perform. It can be a smart thing for a performer to think about the kind of audience or location since you can target an audience better that way. I just felt like bringing out what was in me.

I’m diving into this process yet again and where my LED show is 10 minutes with different props, I now want to make a short 3-5 minute act with the double levi wand. I’m having a costume made by a designer based off my ideas and to give all my readers a little secret, I’m basing my costume off the black panther. I resonate with this animal because it symbolizes courage, honesty, grace, magic and inner power. This will be the theme for my act. I have a song in mind for this act but I’m not 100% sure yet so I will keep it to me until I’m sure.

Why go to Bali to make this act? It seems a little out of nowhere to travel this far to train and make this act but as I struggle with winter depression I felt like I needed the inspiration and the space somewhere else to get anywhere with all of this. Here I can roll out of bed into the training space and learn from all the other artists that travel through here. I posted a short with the bedroom and training space, check my YouTube for the short [click here].

The climate is also really helpful to get inspired to train. When it’s warm I don’t mind getting out of bed early or not sleeping a lot. It does get hot and sweaty but with some big wind fans in the room, I can keep going for a while.

Every Tuesday there is a Flow jam in the temple. I love how the evening goes, it’s so different then the jams back in Amsterdam or others in Belgium that I have visited. Usually Flow Artists come together in a spot and everyone dances whenever they please and as much as they want. Here at the Bali Flow Temple we all gather in the lobby for a tea ceremony and after that we all go outside and we gather in a circle. The owner of the residency - Forest is his name - speaks a few thank yous, goes over the fire safety and as we all hold hands we let a movement go through us one by one, like a weave. After that the fire space is open and every fire spinner gets to spin alone for a full song. The rest all watches, cheers the person on, sings or plays along on a drum. We all share the moment and flow together. When the song is over the fire spinner lights up the next persons prop and so the fire keeps burning one person at the time. At the end we have a short free for all spin with multiple people and after about 90 minutes of fire spinning we close the space and move ourselves inside for an LED jam in the Flow room. A DJ booth is set with music and everyone can dance and share the tricks if they want. I love this line up for the evening, everyone goes through the experience really together. Here’s a short from my first evening at the temple, I arrived a day before so I was a bit jetlagged but had the best time jamming. [Click here] for a short of the fire jam.

The first week has flown by and I can share so much more but for now I will keep it to this. My intention is to bring out the newsletter on a weekly basis I just haven’t decided on a steady day yet. I’m gonna see how it goes with this process, I’m super stoked about the fact that everything gets automatically posted as a blog so I will work on some informational posts aswel explaining what Flow Arts is and go in depth on all the different Flow Props.

Thank you so much for reading, take care & see ya in the next post! Much love and light, Nova