the flow-wand®
Every story has a beginning and the story of the flow-wand began in South Africa in 2002 with a man named Hen. Sean and Prisna met Hen in Cape Town where he was making and selling what he called the Nimbus 2000 – a wooden magician’s floating cane that he decorated with fluorescent spray paint and presented as a modern yo-yo and juggling toy. It was the first time we had seen the magician’s floating cane outside of the stage magic context. He shared a few magic cane tricks with us, we went to a local trance party together, we got some wands from Hen to play and share with friends in the US. We enjoyed it for some weeks, but the novelty of the few moves we learned wore off and without further inspiration, our Nimbus 2000 sat collecting dust for months.
One day, while listening to some pretty music and feeling restless, Prisna picked up the wand and danced with it, exploring movement and possibilities outside of the tricks she knew, finding her flow with it. The result was pure magic. Not the tricksy-I-can-levitate-a-stick type of magic. But the kind of magic that threw open doors and presented a whole new way of connecting with an object and exploring movement. It was no longer about levitating a stick and making it do things, but about tuning into the wand’s momentum and allowing it to teach us to go with the flow and guide our movement.
Sean is always ready to make the perfect flow prop. He was inspired by Prisna's newfound discovery and designed a wand that handled like a dream. It was thin, dense and stiff – qualities that brought out the flow in the flow-wand. It was perfectly balanced and had a revolutionary swivelled finger loop. It was a joy to handle and play with. Our friends wanted it. Their friends wanted it. The rest is flow-wand history. That we have been imitated by flow arts and prop companies around the world is a testament to the awesomeness of the flow-wand, but the original flow-wand floats above the rest.
Prisna has been sharing the wonders of the wand for over 20 years – teaching at numerous flow arts workshops and festivals, and performing for countless audiences from San Francisco to Singapore to Switzerland. Together with Aileen Lawlor, we produced a foundational learning resource for the wand - Flow-wand Fundamentals, which is now available as a digital download.
We are grateful to Hen for his role in instigating something awesome that has inspired thousands of people around the world to move and be moved by this wonderful tool. Thank you Hen and all the magicians that have passed on the art of the floating cane. We are honored to be part of its evolution and to be taking it to new dimensions.
new wand styles emerge :: contact, long string, double wand
Humans, especially flow artists, have a propensity to innovate. Maybe it's because we're generally curious and of the creative bent, or maybe it's because we're simply not focused enough to do the same thing over and over again ;) Prisna's short string wanderings quickly came to include double wanding, which she taught alongside short string wand from the early years.
Prisna is originally from Singapore, and during one of her family visits back there, she taught and shared the wand with the local spinning community - one of whom was Fine from Germany. Fine's wand explorations led her to adapt her wands to have a longer string, and she's credited for having innovated long string wand. This elegant wand style was further promoted by Spiral, whose beautiful long string wand video of her dancing on a white rooftop against a stunning blue sky on the island of Stromboli inspired legions of new wanderers. This was back in the times when you could post a Youtube video and your whole niche community around the world would see it.
Long string and double wand did not require design changes to our wands, other than extending string length for long string, but the advent of contact wand did. Contact wand comprises body rolls, perches, fishtails and other contact manipulation techniques that require weighted ends and a grippy shaft. Lux Luminous from New England is credited with its innovation; its popularity coincided with the launch of our composite system, enabling us to product the composite contact wand, which till this day is considered the best all round LED contact wand for durability, balance, and affordability.
Following the launch of the vision system, came the creation of the full vision contact wand. It is fully lit from end-to-end, gorgeous with loads of features, balanced and hella durable. Lux fondly called it a "beast" and her many videos showing her kicking it around, while doing a multitude of contact moves underscored its durability.
While there are now several different companies making LED wands of varying quality and price range, the flowtoys full vision wands (contact and dance) are generally regarded as the industry standard for beauty, balance, durability and value. You can find our wand collection here.