FIRE EATING AT THE CRUCIABLE (a short rant)

**scot** · Mar-02-2005, 03:10 PM

I think you're thinking of magic. Fire eating isn't dangerous.

**firegirl** · Mar-02-2005, 03:12 PM

huh?

maybe i haven't had enough coffee - but, i totally didn't understand that comment one bit.

k

**Stephon** · Mar-02-2005, 04:32 PM

Coffee--now that's dangerous. What it does to your breath alone is a crime.

No, I think you're right; it sounds like this class/article isn't addressing the dangers involved in fire play (sounds like a fetish site...shit, probably is).

You should write the letter to the editor. Let people know the realities of what they're dealing with.

And remember Scot, magic is only dangerous for the audience; the magican already has no life.

**MissFire** · Mar-02-2005, 04:50 PM

Wow! My first post on performers.net! I've been reading this site for years but never posted.

I used to be a fire performer but began having repeated nightmares towards the end about blowing up a whole theatre full of people and being the only survivor. I think working with fire on a permanent basis creates a constant feeling of anxiety and fear somewhere in your subconscious - even though we try to suppress it.

So I guess the most dangerous thing would be speaking to me after I woke up from one of these nightmares and before my cup of coffee!

MissFire

**jester** · Mar-02-2005, 05:19 PM

I did this gig at Windsor Castle in 1993....

**MissFire** · Mar-02-2005, 05:36 PM

Oh no.....no.....NOOO!!!

**Ivan Bellari** · Mar-02-2005, 06:38 PM

danger..

anytime you light anything on fire, there is danger.

thats sort of the nature of fire .. but if trained properly and practiced safely .. with all the right precautions... fire eating is probably less dangerous than say rolobolo, stilt walking, juggling, or being a mime( in some cities) ....

and everything gives you cancer... i knew a guy who never smoked, never drank coffee, never drank booze, never did drugs... excersized every day ... ate healthy food... lived a good life ..developed stomach cancer... died three years later...

i'd rather see someone training other people to work with fire safely than see someone get hurt because they made a silly mistake early on without learning from someone who has learned the technique.

you have to choose the people you teach carefully... and as for responsibility ....

when performing i don't screw around talking about danger, no jokes at all about the danger... i make sure people know there is a real risk..and at the end of the performance i encourage people who are interested in learning about the things i do to talk to me about training... ( some do , so far no one i'v emet during a performance has been serious enough to get throught the training )

once i had a woman complain to me for about an hour because what i was doing was dangerous ... and her kids were watching ... i suggested that if she didn't approve she should take the childern away ( this was around midnight ) ...

i've been to fetish shows where .. they have fire play... no safety , horrible tools, lots of danger... would it have been responsible for me not to talk to the organiser about the safety issues?

i don't see the point in ignoring the fact that a lot of what we do looks really cool and other people are going to want to emulate us... to that end it we would be irresponsible not to deal with that like adults.

and i think miss fire is right .. there is always a little voice in my head screaming " what are you doing.. thats dangerous"

but for now i can deal ..

-ivan

**firegirl** · Mar-02-2005, 09:26 PM

Originally posted by Stephon
Coffee--now that's dangerous. What it does to your breath alone is a crime.

hahaaaa! that's a good pick-up on that item, stephon!

yeah - the kids i teach in the afternoon always make faces when i bring a big ass cup o' coffee into my movement 1 class... whatever - when you only get three hours of sleep a night...

golly, i don't think i've been around here in ages - how's things going, stephon? been a while.
;P
kate

**firegirl** · Mar-02-2005, 09:37 PM

Re: danger..

Originally posted by Ivan Bellari
anytime you light anything on fire, there is danger.

thats sort of the nature of fire .. but if trained properly and practiced safely .. with all the right precautions... fire eating is probably less dangerous than say rolobolo, stilt walking, juggling, or being a mime( in some cities) .... and everything gives you cancer...

once i had a woman complain to me for about an hour because what i was doing was dangerous ... and her kids were watching ... i suggested that if she didn't approve she should take the childern away ( this was around midnight ) ...

yes - there is danger anytime you light something on fire... and, while i agree that if people are going to learn - they need to learn the safety protocol, too... (i've been doing fire as part of my act for almost five years now... i wish someone had taught me some of the tricks i picked up along the way when i was first starting...) but, i think what appalled me so much about this article was that the author just glossed over the safety issues and dismissed the real danger fire eaters/manipulators face with flippant remarks... and, quite honestly, it's false to state that not many people get hurt. off the top of my head i can think of 12 fire manipulators i know (personally) who have sustained 3d degree burns which have hospitalized them and one who has mouth cancer (never smoked, chewed... so it's not a leap to think it might have been the coleman.) and, while pretty much anything can give you cancer these days - you are amplifying your chances when you put carcinogens directly onto mucas membrane, repeatedly - over a course of years.

like, at this point, i'm just assuming that i'm going down due to cancer at some point. granted - it makes me live all the healthier in non-show time. and, i recently took an extended break from doing any fire performing... which was advised to me a long time ago by a master of the trade.

the thing about kids - it doesn't worry me that kids see this stuff. no. because, responsible performers (like you and i) give adequate warnings that playing with fire is dangerous - physically and in terms of long term health. what worries me about this article is that some kid is going to read it (with few warnings contained in the body of the article) and run off to try sticking fire in their mouth (without having ANY supervision or training)... they could use the wrong fuel... gasoline in their mouths (which is just a death knell right there)... get smacked in the face with a blowback... incinerate themselves... because, they have no earthly idea that these things are even issues... let alone how to avoid them.

even though no one formally trained me (at first) at least i was given warning of things to avoid... you know - "if you're going to try this you need to do this to make sure you're safe..."

and, i disagree that it's less dangerous than rolo-bolo or stilt walking (i'll give you the mime thing)... because, what's the worst thing that can happen to you doing those things... realistically? break an ankle? some other bones? i know you're going to say "oh, you can break your neck..." sure you can - but, i've never heard of anyone doing it. whereas, you can DIE as a result of a mishap with fire... and, i do know of people who have had that happen to them...

anyhow.

k

**Ivan Bellari** · Mar-02-2005, 11:49 PM

to quote fred durst

we are in agreeance in a lot of things....

there should be proper supervision
proper safety is important
the media sucks....
and people don't know the truth of fire performance...

no i don't think that "fire eating 101" should be offered at the community teaching annex to everyone with an hour to kill a week and 20 bucks ... and no one is gonna advertise a class and then say "by the way this will make your teeth fall out and give you the runs"

really, the point is.. "media sucks" isn't it?

any sort of media coverage of fire performers isn't gonna cover all the bad stuff, and frankly i don't want them to, it's tough enough to keep people from freaking out whenever they see i breathe fire or light my head on fire or even eat fire..

if it wasnt for insurance ( which really is needed) nice letters from fire marshals ( also needed) a decent reputation as a hyper safe performer ( very helpfull) and my pyro licence ( usless but looks nice ) i would not get half the work i get.

i don't need the freaking papers talking about how some moron tried to breathe fire with unleaded and leaves behind a grieving family and the smell of barbeque... people still mention the whitesnake disaster when i talk about fire performance... but i stopped punching people over that a few weeks ago ( baby steps to enlightenment )

if i talk about fire performance i never use the word "play" i even dispise the use of the word in the leather community...i say i work with fire.. we do fire stunts, not fire tricks...
i explain ways you could get hurt during a show....talk about the chance of death ( makes for nice drama ) am deathly serious when i make kids promise not to try it at home, and generally balance between the fun of street performance and the severity of working with fire...

all fire performers know the risk, most have scars, and some wil die from it... but i've never heard of a fire eater die while fire eating... how bad would you have to be to do that? ( great now i know how i'll die... man i can see the headline " fire idot chokes on torch " section d page 7 below the fold.) and i don't think it's fair to blame fire performance for cancer anymore than you can blame cigarettes.. it's the idiots who ingest the bad things that get what they deserve... no one has put a gun to my head and said " breathe fire fatman or DIE".... we choose to do it.for a good reason.

so when i read the paper and see a bit about fire performance i see if i know the people, when i see fire being used as a tool for entertainment i watch carefully to see if i can learn... and when i talk about it ... i make sure people know it's a skill that is difficult to tame...

generally i assume that every one who watches me knows nothing so when they leave i hope they take a little knowledge with them.. as for the morons ... let em burn.. but let them burn in obscurity.. it's bad for the industry

but i agree with you firegirl
the media sucks!

we could torch them... no .. bad idea.

**firegirl** · Mar-03-2005, 12:42 AM

no - i've never heard of someone's death from just sticking a torch in their mouth... unless you count the bloke who asphyxiated due to a severe case of lung burn... (please - no one start the friggin' lung burn debate again... alright?) or, perhaps the manipulator who had a jar of fuel dump on the hem of her ren faire costume... then a ember from a dying torch fell off on her & she sustained 3d degree burns over 90% of her body... it's never the actual *eating* which kills someone - it's the accidents which occur because we AMPLIFY our chances of being hurt by putting ourselves in fucked up situations.

i don't care how careful you are... fire manipulators - eaters, spinners, blowers, jugglers, dancers - get hurt frequently.
and, often in a quite severe manner.

when i decided to put fire into my show a friend of mine (who is an awesome variety artist - juggler, slack rope, acrobatics, ariel, escapes, ham-bone... etc...) BEGGED me not to do it - as he was afraid i'd get seriously hurt. says something when someone who'd been doing sideshow and circus nearly his whole life begs you not to do something.

but, of course i did it anyhow.

and, yes - it's not the cigarettes which causes cancer (YES IT IS) - it's the stupid people who smoke them. it's not the gun that kills - it's the person who pulls the trigger... it's not the coleman which causes cancer (um... YES IT IS) it's the dumb ass fire performer who puts the shit in his/her body... yes - we all have choices... but, to say that cigarettes and coleman don't cause cancer is a.) faulty and, b.) a semantic argument which doesn't apply if you really think about it.

but, we're in agreement about a lot of stuff - true.

this article wasn't just a blurb in the local paper - it was a feature story... front page of a suplemental section on a national news publication... three big, beautiful color pictures of the instructor doing a suspend (which she called "dragon's breath"... damn rennies... i can say that having formerly been one, m'lord...) and, all her students doing various other torch tricks...

but, i'm being redundant & now it's time for sleepies.
peace out,
k

**jester** · Mar-03-2005, 05:36 AM

I think there are two ways of performing with fire. One is where you use the DANGER to create drama and tension, the other is where you use it's incredibly seductive appearence and sound for aesthetic effect.

It's not a workshop event for over excited weekend hippies.

I like the fact that most fire breathers (like most smokers) do not encourage other people.

Streetperformers have developed thousands of original ways of making the point: "Don't try this at home." Why don't people beleive us?

It is absolutely not an event for a night school novelty class. It is an advanced activity that should be kept strictly in trade.

I have been to many, (woefully too many events) where some over enthusiastic teenager has come up to the organiser and said:

"I learned how to fire breath, eat, fahrt, poi, dance, juggle, vomit, etc when I was travelling, I could do some now if you like."

And the organiser thinks "Wow!" and I feel like a killjoy and say: "er.. what about the Insurance, risk assessment etc etc." Most recently I threatened to walk out of a gig in a night club because despite the fact that it was decorated with drapes, they were allowing one of their bar staff to mingle with fire (WTF) and refused to make him stop. Luckily, emboldened by my stance, several other staff complained too and the manager had a re-think.

It is not a pastime for amateurs. It is not a pastime. For the same reason that not just anyone is allowed to drive Petrol Tankers, not just anybody should be allowed to juggle fire.

Of course when it is done right, by proffessionals, it is the most majestic and beautiful thing which can be watched over and over again.

**Stephon** · Mar-03-2005, 09:04 AM

Originally posted by firegirl
how's things going, stephon? been a while.
;P

Doin' ok, thanks for asking. Like many here, I'm in my slow time of year for work, but pursuing things.

How you?

Did you attend the last MotionFest and talk with a woman named Lisa Oberg about performing together? She mentioned she met someone, and it just occurred to me it could be you.

**firegirl** · Mar-03-2005, 11:27 AM

Originally posted by Stephon
Did you attend the last MotionFest and talk with a woman named Lisa Oberg about performing together? She mentioned she met someone, and it just occurred to me it could be you.

nope - it wasn't me...

i'm okay - in san fran... doing a bunch of improv & working on a new theatrical show that i'm hoping to open at the end of may.

did you do mrf last fall? how the show go there?

FIRE EATING AT THE CRUCIABLE (a short rant)

FIRE EATING AT THE CRUCIABLE (a short rant)

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