Manuel is a talented artist who started spinning with fire at the age of 15. He now has more than 12 years of experience in teaching and performing in Europe and abroad. Since he trains and performs with different groups, many people are a source of inspiration for him. From there he developed his own unique technical style focusing on fire manipulation and special effects.
My first prop was poi and after a decade I still love flowing with it. Poi is a truly good prop to learn all your basic movements with and to use as a foundation to build the rest of your flow repertoire. I’m so happy I discovered poi and everything that came out of it.
Even for buugeng training which I started 3 years after I discovered poi spinning, I fell back to my poi basics as timing and direction are key to buugeng spinning. With an overlap in double staff practice, I could combine movements of different props quickly and created my own style.
Belgium is my home country where I grew up and passed most of my flow journey. During that time I saw the flow arts community grow there, together with the growth of the flow arts gathering: Ignite, which I started organizing in 2017. At 24 years old, I moved to The Netherlands where a flow family welcomed me into their house. I perform now full-time in multiple countries around the world. I’m grateful to see where flow arts has brought me in the past years and curious to see where it will bring me next.
I discovered flow arts, more specifically poi in 2010 at a music festival. When I discovered tutorials about poi when I looked it up I started practicing and never stopped.
I spun poi for a whole year before I met other spinners and discovered other props. Double staff was my second flow tool followed by buugeng. From there I spun anything that I could get my hands on but those first three are my major props.
The fact that it has to be perfect to work and that slow-spinning gives a great effect. Also as a performer I love the reaction it gets from the crowd, sometimes I even love this mesmerized silent crowd more than huge applause cause I know I caught their attention to the fullest.
Being inspired by other talented spinners and the performance bookings. It’s almost like a deadline, you have to do it by then and I only wanna show something I’m proud of so I work hard toward those performance dates and that’s a major part of my motivation.
The fact that it is a very accessible art form while still being able to challenge people who have practiced it for decades.
Handmade with ❤ in Czech Republic.
