(Music)
This is the Orbitar:
at its roots, it's an ancient art form called poi spinning,
which involves swinging a weight on the end of a cord
in circular patterns.
But for me it's the future of play, music and holistic healing.
When I first encountered poi spinning, I was in a pretty bad mood.
I had torn my rotator cuff,
and I was sort of moping around circus practice,
because I wasn’t able to fly trapeze.
So when one of my fellow circus performers
handed me this pair of socks with rice in the end
to spin around in circles, it kind of felt like my life is over.
It just seemed so lame compared to flying trapeze!
But I was hurt. I couldn't fly. So I gave it a try.
And the second I started spinning,
it felt awesome.
Not only did I have no idea why it felt so awesome,
I had no idea I was about to spend the next ten years
trying to figure it out.
>From an underwear convention
to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago,
I was playing poi in all kinds of places.
I've given lessons on the beach,
and I've spun flags amongst columns.
I opened a center for poi spinning,
where I collaborated with local artists to make equipment
like creature poi,
which are like dinosaurs’ heads and animals on strings
and hula hoops and staves.
I made videos about poi that were projected on buildings.
I wrote an entire master’s thesis on poi.
(Laughter)
And through all this, I slowly began to understand a few things
about why Poi spinning feels so good.
So the sneaky thing about poi is
it's actually a form of play,
and play is just a state of mind, so what's play for one person
like going for a run, might be grueling for somebody else.
But poi seems to have just the right combination of elements
to actually invoke a play state in most people.
It's accessible,
it's customizable.
You can learn to do cool things with it really easily,
and it requires a certain kind of focus
that pushes all of the other nagging thoughts out of your brain.
Unless you are trying to give a TED Talk while you are spinning poi,
which is actually pretty challenging because when you spin,
it does kind of demand that you focus on the connection
between your mind and your body.
It almost sort of puts you into this trance state.
And I think the thing that was hardest for me to understand
about what might compel someone to spin one of these things around
is that play by definition
is something you can do just for the sake of doing it.
As adults with busy lives, that's kind of a tough concept,
because we have so much stuff to take care of: we have to make money,
and we have to feed ourselves
and play usually is not on that same list.
But we know from experts in the field
that play is actually essential to our lives.
It helps us make sense of the world.
It's a tool for problem solving.
It's a catalyst for physical, social and emotional development.
Play helps us stay healthy and it helps us stay happy.
And even though poi has all of these things going for it,
for me there is still something obvious missing.
So when you spin poi, you are instantly creating a rhythm,
but unless you light them on fire
and you hear this flame whooshing around your head,
there are innately silent.
So as not only a poi spinner, but as a musician,
and somebody who's kind of scared of spinning fire,
it was obvious what had to be done.
And thus, the Orbitar was born.
Through many years of experiments
and different iterations,
through trials and errors and successes
and plenty of failures
the most recent being the Orbitar flinging into my laptop screen
and completely destroying it while practicing for this very TED Talk.
(Laughter)
A new multimedia instrument was born.
The way it works is that the pois send data to a computer
about things like how fast they're going and their orientation.
And that data can be used to generate brand new audio
or it can be used to modify existing audio.
And the glove sort of can control your performance parameters.
So you set it up ahead of time, really to do whatever you want.
It can add effects or it can change the lights,
or it can move through different movements in your performance piece.
So to me combining these things, poi and play and music,
really has limitless potential because just like play,
we know music is really good for us.
It can alter your breathing and your heart rate,
and your brain waves.
It can help with chronic back pain and motor skills,
and depression and self-confidence.
And the really exciting part lies ahead in the future,
because unlike movement therapy and music therapy,
almost no research has been done on poi spinning.
So just imagine what could happen if we really started to study this.
Imagine if we use the Orbitar
as a serious tool for physical and mental rehabilitation.
Imagine Orbitars in every hospital
as a tool for developing physical strength
and symmetry, balance and coordination.
Image Orbitars in every nursing home
as a tool for fighting neurological disorders.
And in a time when we are fighting to keep the arts in our schools,
imagine easy to make, affordable, easy to use Orbitars in every classroom.
Imagine integrating movement and music into disciplines like geometry,
because when you spin, you're actually making these geometric shapes;
or the laws of physics, or computer programming,
which is the way the Orbitar runs.
And in a society when a lot of us have forgotten how to play,
imagine if the power to create sound and light compositions,
to release your daily stressors and your nagging thoughts,
to slip into a trance state.
Imagine if that power was at your fingertips.
Just imagine.
(Applause)
(Music)
(Music ends)
(Applause)