Get in a spin with Marawa The Amazing

I’d been expecting the same from hula-hooping wonder Marawa Ibrahim, who reached the semi-finals of Britain’s Got Talent this year and tours the world with her impressive act.

But I was wrong. Australia-born Marawa didn’t hoola out of the womb. She didn’t even do it in the playground. In fact, it wasn’t until adulthood that she first spun a hoop around her hips.

“I didn’t do it as a kid at all,“ explains the 28-year-old. “I think when I was younger I must have thought I couldn’t because I’d never been shown how to – so never bothered. It wasn’t until much much later."

Surprising when you learn how far the deceptively simple skill has taken Marawa. She’s reached two BGT semi-finals (in the UK and Australia), performed for the King of Sweden and released her very own iPhone app called iHoola.

Quite a career for someone who studied social science at university and “ended up managing a Topshop“. But that was before circus school with its strict training regime.

“We did it for an hour a day, every day, for six months. The whole time with just one hula hoop round the waist.

“It was really boring but I got really good – after that we started playing around with different tricks and things went from there. It’s been a very strange transition, it’s really hard to know how it happened.“

But happen it did. Since graduating in 2005, Marawa has enjoyed stints with the Lawrence Olivier award-winning cabaret troupe La Clique and four months playing Josephine Baker in the critically acclaimed show Desir. Now comes her first solo show – Exotica.

Billed as a “history lesson with a difference“, the show, which also features trapeze and skating, goes back in time to look at the exotic dancers and cabaret acts of the past – women Marawa feels a special connection with.

“These women who were called exotic often made themselves look that way,“ explains Marawa, who is half Australian and half Somalian. “I question what else it was that made them exotic. They adapted to the different cultures they performed in but didn’t belong to one.

“People usually describe me as exotic – I guess because I’m mixed race. I look at my connection to these beautiful women of the past.“

Marawa spent hours researching the seminal acts at the National Fairground Archive in Sheffield to put together the show. More hours, she admits, than is spent with hoola on hips.

“Training?! Well I can sometimes be spotted carrying up to five outfits around! I guess my training is done more mentally than physically. Though I can sometimes be seen in the park with my headphones on strutting around with my arms going up and down.“

Not that there’s much time to practise – Marawa has found herself so in demand she has moved to the UK to ease the monthly travel to America and Europe fulfilling a schedule that leaves her out of breath.

“My life is in three suitcases. My friends kid that I look so settled – but I only moved into my place in April. But hey, it’s pretty cushy, it’s a really nice lifestyle. Quite how it happened though I still don’t know!“

Exotica is at Jacksons Lane, Archway Road, on July 16 at 8pm. Details: 020 8341 4421, www.jacksonslane.org.uk