Noel Yee

Noel Yee is a flow-arts performer, teacher, artistic director and organizer who has shaped the technical and institutional life of object manipulation as a movement practice. Working across poi, staffs, fans and other props, Yee developed a performance vocabulary that treats the body and object as a continuous system, and he built that vocabulary into instructional media, ensemble work and durable community structures.

During the late 2000s and early 2010s, Yee's work circulated through the growing festival network around flow arts. His biography lists appearances in the *Circles of Light* video series from 2007 through 2011 and credits him with writing, producing and appearing in five instructional spinning DVDs through Vulcan DVDs, covering poi, partner poi, double staff, fans and contact staff. These projects established him as both a working artist and a documenter of technique for wider circulation.

Beyond solo performance, Yee helped build organizations and events. He worked with the Flow Arts Institute, FireDrums, Kinetic Fire, Vulcan Crew, Foreways Project and Vulcan DVDs, serving as artistic director of the Flow Show project and performing with groups including Foreways Project and Vulcan Crew. He also appeared in the *Give Props* documentary. In 2018, Yee directed the International Jugglers' Association festival, describing that year as a transition from full-time travel toward full-time education—a shift toward teaching and institutional service while continuing performance and research into technique.

Yee's work with the IJA became a sustained leadership commitment. By 2025, he had entered his eighth year on the association's board and, alongside his partner Natalie, ran the Fishtown Juggling Club in Philadelphia. The IJA identified him as co-festival director and assigned him festival reports and governance responsibilities. These roles show his contemporary place as a bridge between flow-arts communities and the longer-established juggling organization.