Cassaundra Smyth has been manipulating props for seven years, about as long as she has been in Cali, since moving away from her birthplace of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Currently, Cassaundra lives at the Vulcan in Oakland.
Having started her journey as a glow-stringer, Poi has been and still is Cassaundra’s gateway prop to the flow arts. Nowadays, Cassaundra mostly juggles Poi, which for her is still a weird transition. Cassaundra chooses to focus on her practices and more so on how she uses her props rather than just the fire spinning aspect and trying to be a performer and make money from it. While she likes doing this, it’s not where her heart is. Cass is about the creativity and how it’s’ an expression of dance extended from her hands.
Through her travels to various flow and fire festivals, Cassaundra has seen the disciplines grow exponentially. Being around the community and seeing how each prop has grown as an art form, it continues to amaze Cass how many different areas a person can excel in and blend those areas together. It’s like painting different pictures. Cass feels like she can do whatever she wants, she truly believes that you can be as great as you want to be. You just have to actually try.
They say an artist is never happy with their work, for Cassaundra, when she gets a trick or concept she’s like “ok that’s good now I want to see how much further I can go. “ Cassaundra feels the need to spin every day because it’s like dancing or for people who go biking, running or surfing. It’s about doing something physical so that you can have that adrenaline rush and release of endorphins after a good practice session leading to those good feeling happy vibes!
Follow more of Cassaundra’s art on her social media links below.
Instagram: @madtech_manipulations