If you think the hula hoop is for children, Rebecca Halls will introduce you to a contemporary lifestyle choreography you didn‘t expect.

The Canadian, Berlin-based performer, yoga instructor, professional hula hooper and trained contemporary dancer founded Hoopurbia in 2012, the world’s first urban hula hooping event, which features a week of contemporary dance workshops, multi-disciplinary collaboration and dance competition. Rising from the Native American traditional, storytelling dance form, hoop dance has been adapted with a modern twist, especially with the introduction of Halls’s laser hoop prototype (LED hoops were already in use), her collaboration with scientist Jo Grys.With the laser hoop, premiered at Hoopurbia 2014, Halls’s hoop dance performance becomes an undulating, mesmerizing array of lights. Now preparing for their fourth annual festival in 2015, Hoopurbia has grown to become a unique dance, music and art event, repositioning hoop dance to the front of the modern dance landscape.

With hoop dance gaining popularity across Europe — after already attracting followings in the US and Australia — a good deal of credit is down to Halls’s energy, vision and commitment to the form. With innovations like the laser hoop and events like Hoopurbia, she is a one-person hoop dance evangelist.