{"id":22769,"date":"2025-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-01T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/?post_type=essay&p=22769"},"modified":"2025-07-23T10:30:33","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T14:30:33","slug":"taking-life-for-a-spin-all-the-worlds-a-stage-for-professional-baton-twirler-sarah-hawkinson","status":"publish","type":"essay","link":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/essay\/taking-life-for-a-spin-all-the-worlds-a-stage-for-professional-baton-twirler-sarah-hawkinson\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Life for a Spin: All the world\u2019s a stage for professional baton twirler Sarah Hawkinson"},"content":{"rendered":"

By: Ashley Daniels<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You could say Pawleys Island native Sarah Hawkinson plays with fire, but with a positive spin. She also juggles a few things in her day-to-day work life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 28-year-old baton twirler, fire twirler, baton teacher, and fire and flow artist has been baton twirling since she was six and hasn\u2019t taken a break since then. Her first competition team was with Carolina Dynamics out of Waccamaw Elementary School, where she originally learned how to spin fire.\u00a0 \u201cI went to their practice after school one day and saw the girls tossing the batons and doing cool\u00a0 stuff, and I was interested, so my mom let me join,\u201d says Hawkinson. \u201cI had always done dance and gymnastics too, and once I was doing all three, my mom said I couldn\u2019t do all three, so I chose baton and dance.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Hawkinson continued to twirl through high school and helped coach beginners when she was just 15 years old.
\u201cI would make the routines, and I\u2019ve always loved teaching,\u201d she says. \u201cI think choreography is just so fun. I love music, and I think movement is medicine, no matter what the movement is. \u2026 And that, with music, is always telling a story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She went on to be a member of the Tiger Twirler team for all four years at Clemson University, a dream she had since she was in the second grade, when she first participated in the \u201cTiger Twirler for a Day\u201d camp.\u00a0 Hawkinson moved back to the beach after college to help Coach Laura Card with Carolina Dynamics, but then Covid hit, classes and school in general all shut down, and she had to get creative with her twirling talents. Inspired by her first Electric Forest music festival she attended in 2018 in Michigan, where she first saw LED batons used, Hawkinson picked hers up and practiced on the beach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDuring the pandemic, that\u2019s all I did,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cI would work during the day, and I would go to the beach after work and just spin my batons by myself for a long time.\u201d It was also during that time that she stumbled upon some people who were spinning props, not batons.\u00a0 \u201cI was introduced to this world of flow art, which is what we call fire and flow arts,\u201d says Hawkinson, \u201cand it\u2019s basically spinning different types of props that either glow or they\u2019re fire.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Some of these spinning props, she explains, are poi, a contact staff, a dragon staff, and hula hoops.
\u201cI had met some people online who were doing this in Myrtle Beach, and they invited me to come to a flow jam or fire jam, which is when everyone meets up and someone brings music and you all take turns, spinning your props, and you can share skills and learn different tricks,\u201d says Hawkinson. \u201cYou get to know people in the community together because we all share this passion for using props.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s also how she was able to meet Ann Winnard at one of the jams; she owns Over the Moon Productions, a local, professional entertainment company that specializes in circus and theatrical performances, including fire art, LED shows, stilt walking, balloon artistry, face painting, magic, juggling, and more. Hawkinson auditioned and made the team in 2020. Initially performing at area resorts, the troupe now performs its variety show at Broadway at the Beach, Barefoot Landing, RipTydz Oceanfront Grille, Bummz Beach Caf\u00e9 and Downtown Myrtle Beach over the summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis year\u2019s LED show is 20 minutes and this year\u2019s theme is \u2018Electro Circus,\u2019 so we\u2019re all clowns,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s incredibly silly and has been a hoot to create for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the other seasons, she runs her Tidewater Twirlers baton twirling team, which was previously known as Carolina Dynamics; she took the reins after Coach Card, who is like her second mom, retired after teaching for 25 years. Students start at age 3, including Card\u2019s granddaughter, a cherished full-circle moment.
Hawkinson also writes grants and coordinates outreach programs for the Pawleys Island Festival of Music & Art, something she has been doing for the nonprofit for the last five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI juggle batons, but I also juggle all of my work,\u201d she says with a laugh. \u201cPeople ask me what I do, and I tell them, \u2018Well, I have a few jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For more information on Tidewater Twirlers, visit them on Instagram at
@tidewatertwirlers. And for a complete summer entertainment schedule for Over the Moon Productions, visit Overthemoonmb.com.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ashley Daniels You could say Pawleys Island native Sarah Hawkinson plays with fire, but with a positive spin. She also juggles a few things in her day-to-day work life. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22771,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_gspb_post_css":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","footnotes":""},"essay_type":[46,76],"essay-category":[101,100],"class_list":["post-22769","essay","type-essay","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","essay_type-features","essay_type-sasee-gets-personal","essay-category-businesses","essay-category-local"],"blocksy_meta":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/22769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/essay"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay\/22769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22771"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"essay_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay_type?post=22769"},{"taxonomy":"essay-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sasee.com\/ro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/essay-category?post=22769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}