Tiahna Goldbird describes herself as an artist, maker, activist, performer, mum and woman in no particular order.
"I could say mum first because that's the first thing I do in the morning and the last thing I do at night, but we still must make art," she says.
The 32-year-old started hula hooping in Newcastle 10 years ago at the Groovin the Moo festival. Somebody had a huge hula hoop, and Goldbird gave it a go.
Since then she's been hooked, hooping her way around the country.
She's been performing and writing since she was in school at Coffs Harbour (where she's originally from). After she finished high school, she worked and lived in the Whitsundays, the Gold Coast, Yulara and Darwin in the Northern Territory, Cronulla, Newcastle and Melbourne. She jokes her gap year was a "half decade."
She met Aaron, her future husband in Melbourne, where she performed on Southbank when she wasn't working in early child education.
She noticed a connection between child's play and hoop play.
"There's lots of learning through play and accessing flow through play," she says. "But that's something we're more likely to accept for children than for adults. Open free space for adults is declining as we take exercise into gyms and private areas."
Flow arts are a variety of movement-based disciplines including dance, juggling, fire-spinning and object manipulation.
Flow allowed her to explore dancing and what her body was capable of in a way that wasn't centred on her appearance.
"In the beginning I was like 'I'm gonna get an eight pack!' I never got an eight pack, but I got really good at hula hooping. I wanted to get a body that I loved, and I think I came to love the body that I had," she says.
She began exploring burlesque dancing, and liked that burlesque dancers could be anything - brash, funny, not just sexy and beautiful.
"I started to blend the activism with the performance art and the dancing. When I first moved to Coffs from Melbourne, I had an interesting moment with an agent where he kind of asked me if I was fit enough to do a hoop show, and I got really mad about that," she says.
"Then he showed me the size six hula hooper that he likes to book, an amazing hooper. I know what she went through to get those skills, but I'm not her. From that experience I made up the bikini body routine."
She took the fitness, summer-fit, sporty "your body is your business card" character and flipped it on its head. She created a pin-up character who does all things fitness with the hoop. She doesn't get a "bikini body" at the end, but the crowd is still impressed.
Four years ago, Goldbird started handcrafting her own hoops, as she noticed there weren't many hoops for bigger, taller or broader-chested people. She started her business, Teaki Hoops.
Two years ago she moved to Newcastle from Coffs Harbour. Now she makes her hoops in her "she shed" out the back of her home.
"When I see people at the pub going on these big hoops, having never done it before, that's pure gold for me," she says.
She's a member of Newcastle Fire and Flow, a local group of performers who host community flow meetups. She sells her hoops at markets. She gets booked for kids parties and workshops. She recently held a summer of '59-style pool party protest "swim in" at the Newcastle Ocean Baths.
"These are the kind of things I want to do in terms of activism," she says. "Create events where the public can be involved, blur the lines between performers and the public."
From feminism to environmentalism, she has many strong values that she's worked into her personal and performance life. Play is also part of the big picture for Goldbird.
She can't be pigeonholed, and she's still trying to work out her best way forward in Newcastle.
"I want adults and children and families to be able to play together. Our recreation should link families instead of separating them," Goldbird says. "You see such strong bonds when father and daughter go out surfing, and when someone's nan picks up a hula hoop and they're like "oh my god, nan's hula hooping!"
She's will perform at Kurri Kurri Nostalgia Festival March 27-29, and she has two upcoming fund-raisers for the Australian Conservation Foundation. Search for Teaki Hoops on Facebook and Instagram to learn the details.
