History 2

The story of FlowStar begins long before the modern festival scene. Its deeper roots can be traced back to Errenzhuan, also written Er Ren Zhuan / 二人转, a traditional folk performance from Northeast China. Errenzhuan means “two-person rotation,” and it developed as a lively duet art form that combined singing, dancing, comedy, storytelling, rhythm, and spinning movement. It grew from rural communities, where performers entertained people with humor, music, and stories from everyday life.

In Errenzhuan, performers often used simple props such as fans, cloths, and handkerchiefs. These props were not just decoration. They helped create movement, rhythm, and visual energy. A cloth could spin, wave, turn, and flow with the performer’s body. This made the performance feel alive. The art was playful, social, expressive, and full of motion. That spirit is one of the earliest ancestors of what people now recognize as flow arts.

Centuries later, the idea of spinning cloth found a new life in Europe through the late Tai Dapero, an artist from Barcelona, Spain. In the early 2000s, Tai Dapero began experimenting with cloth as a juggling and movement prop. Sources on the modern Dapostar history describe how he was inspired by activities like hacky sack, flair bartending, frisbee, and juggling, starting with simple square kitchen towels before developing the modern spinning cloth form.

This creation became known as the Dapo or Dapostar. The early versions were square, but the design evolved into the now-famous eight-pointed star shape, created by overlapping two squares. This shape gave the cloth better balance, stability, and aerodynamic movement, allowing it to spin, float, pass, stall, and move around the body in a smooth, gravity-defying way.

From Barcelona, Dapo spread through juggling circles, flow arts communities, festivals, parks, workshops, and street-performance spaces around the world. It became more than a toy or prop. It became a tool for creativity, patience, rhythm, body awareness, and connection. People could practice alone, pass it with friends, dance with it, or use it as part of performance. Some flow arts sources describe Dapostars as originating in Spain and credit Tai Dapero with creating the modern form.

As the prop traveled, different communities gave it new names and new meanings. In many places, especially in the United States, the Dapostar became known as the FlowStar. The name FlowStar wasn't popular until AJ brought "astrobender" to the states and renamed the company FlowStar. The name reflects what the prop does: it creates flow through spinning, movement, balance, and play. It also reflects what the shape looks like: a star moving through space. This itself helped popularize the new found name for the art.

Today’s FlowStar carries pieces of all these histories. From Errenzhuan, it inherits the ancient spirit of cloth movement, performance, rhythm, and cultural expression. From Tai Dapero’s Dapo, it inherits the modern eight-pointed design, the juggling influence, and the playful challenge of spinning fabric through the air. From today’s flow community, it becomes a symbol of creativity, mindfulness, dance, music, and personal style.

The journey from Errenzhuan to Dapo to FlowStar is a story of transformation. A simple cloth used in folk performance became a modern spinning art form. A square towel became an eight-pointed star. A local tradition became a global flow movement. What began as rhythm, humor, and movement in community performance now continues through FlowStar as a modern expression of play, patience, creativity, and connection.

FlowStar is where history, fabric, movement, and imagination meet. It honors the past while creating something new for today’s dancers, jugglers, artists, festival communities, and anyone who wants to feel the flow.