Blink and you may just miss it. A spinning blur of color dashes through the air, flying in circles every which way. After captivating everyone in the audience, the object lands. The crowd roars, erupting in cheers and applause. Like a ringmaster standing in the center of the circus, commanding all the chaos with just two sticks attached by a string, is Stephanie Chen, CVHS junior and president of the school’s diabolo club.
Diabolo, a hobby where one juggles an hourglass-shaped bobbin as one would with a yo-yo, is perhaps what Chen is best known for at CVHS. She has performed at multiple I-Fests and pep rallies throughout her years, the most recent one being the 2024 Halloween pep rally.
Themed around Team Rocket, a fictional team of villains in the Pokémon franchise, Chen’s Halloween performance featured her, junior Christian Nguyen and sophomore Charles Tang.
“I think I was just messing around with thinking about Halloween ideas when I thought it would be hilarious if we did the Team Rocket intro,” Chen said.
Chen typically arranges choreography for these performances by listening to songs on loop to visualize what tricks might work best with the music. She takes inspiration for timing and blocking from various group performances, like those from the Texas Diabolo Association at the University of Texas at Austin.
“If I [come up with] a really good idea for trick placement, I’ll write it down and just fill in the rest of the song with tricks,” Chen said.
This past performance had a mix of duo tricks, which Chen and Nguyen performed, and solo tricks from Tang.
“I’ve done solos before, and I like to give time for solos within performances,” Chen said. “But I generally like to perform with others, as it makes it somewhat less stressful if I drop.”
The performers met to rehearse two to three times per week as the pep rally neared. They typically spend a session rehearsing individually before regrouping to run through a full performance together.
“Practice with others involves a lot of good-spirited yelling at each other to ‘lock in,’” Chen said.
One trick in particular required a lot of extra practice. The long string — a duo trick where one spins a diabolo on the string, which acts like the rotating jump rope in a game of helicopter — was one of the more stressful routines in the October performance.
“Due to how long the string was, we worried if we had space to perform the trick at all without wiping out a few freshmen,” Chen said. “Luckily, we didn’t, so the trick will likely make some reappearances in future performances.”
Chen first saw the long string trick in a USA Diabolo Competition performance, saying that it “blew [her] mind.” She also remembers how mesmerizing some tricks were when she first picked up the diabolo. It’s what initially motivated her to learn more about the hobby.
“Being able to spread [diabolo] and show it to others motivates me now,” Chen said.
Chen was first introduced to diabolo years ago at Houston Dragon Academy, a local Chinese school. She was there for a summer camp, at which diabolo was offered as an afternoon activity for the campers.
“[The class] didn’t even have a teacher at the time,” Chen said. “I just remember being the only person who managed to get mine spinning at the time, and it became my favorite afternoon activity from there.”
She then got her own diabolo and practiced a bit before putting the diabolo sticks down for a few years. That is, until her freshman year, when she joined the CVHS Diabolo club.
“I saw the advertisement on the TV screen and remembered [my] experience from Houston Dragon Academy. I wasn’t really involved at school then, so I decided to join,” Chen said.
Things only picked up from there. Her first performance was at I-Fest in her freshman year.
“It was really nerve-wracking at the time, but I remember feeling super accomplished afterwards,” Chen said.
Despite having years of experience and performances under her belt, Chen still gets nervous before her performances.
“Yo-yo [has] the most to lose when mistakes happen,” Chen said. “K-pop [Club] won’t [accidentally] hit a freshman in the head.”
Although Chen had to call off her performance in the Valentine’s Day pep rally because she felt that she hadn’t practiced enough, she’s already starting to plan a performance for the end-of-year pep rally.
Beyond diabolo, Chen also uses art as another creative outlet. Having loved drawing since childhood, she first pivoted to digital art during the COVID-19 pandemic — a path that has since continued to blossom.
“The versatility and expressiveness of art is my favorite part of it,” Chen said. “Being able to create things from nothing is a magic in and of itself.”
When asked to pick her favorite between art and diabolo, Chen had to call it a tie between the two.
“They’re both parts of my personality I hold close to my heart, but I’d say art is a little higher because I’ve just been doing it longer,” Chen said.
She plans to continue both activities beyond high school and see where they might take her in the future.
“I actually look into every college to see if they have a diabolo club,” Chen said. “If my future college doesn’t have one, I’ll make one myself.”
In the future, Chen also wants to volunteer at Houston Dragon Academy to teach diabolo, which she encourages anyone interested to try out.
“It may be frustrating at first, but even just powering through and learning the basics is really rewarding,” Chen said.
You can usually find Chen at CVHS Diabolo club meetings at lunch on Tuesdays, Thursdays or Fridays at the math hallway lockers or the amphitheater — or when you accidentally send her your email intended for CVHS’ calculus teacher, also named Stephanie Chen.
“I unfortunately cannot help [you with] your midterm grade,” Chen — the student — said. “But I can teach you how to spin a yo-yo.”
