Ok, I have had a few days of rest and it is now time to write down some words about my Flame Festival experience.
As mentioned in my previous post, Flame Festival is a 4-day event where fire performers, teachers, students, and enthusiasts gather for workshops.
A lot of things went wrong in my prep, despite having a packing list, and I left much later than I intended. My devices and charger banks ended up not having enough charge and I ended up having to buy a few things that I couldn’t find in the house, such as a camping stove. I thought my 360 camera was fully charged but it was 0% charged. I also ended up forgetting part of my water pump, so I had to pour water from my big jug precariously all weekend.
Even so, I arrived at Skull Shoals around 6pm and set up my camp. I chose a location that seemed inviting and to my happy surprise my neighbors were my camping neighbors from the last Flame Festival. So that was awesome. The energy was already great and when the fire circle opened up I did a round of fire staff. I went to bed fairly early. There were some moments of rain, but it wasn’t too disruptive.
The weather all weekend would be pretty phenomenal overall. Sometimes a bit hot and sometimes a bit chilly, but nothing miserable.
For the days of classes, I was unable to wake up in time for the first round of classes, but otherwise did a fairly good job attending all the classes of various types. I took tutting, bellydance, pole, staff, and fans classes. I saw lots of familiar faces and made lots of new connections. I made some progress with fishtails, floor work, and maybe learned a little more crowd work, although I progressed in that mostly watching others and reflecting on how I might have incorporated that more into what I do in the fire circle.
I didn’t end up having the energy all weekend to boil water even once, so my dehydrated oatmeals and huel meals were untouched. Instead, I lived entirely on my snacks and the walking tamales and drank my instant coffees room temp. & unfortunately, the entire festival I was dealing with a grotesque eye infection. I felt very self conscious about it whenever I wasn’t wearing my sunglasses.
I attended a forum on the topic of performer compensation and equitable access to flow arts. I learned a lot about economic pressures on performers and up-and-comers that I think will help me a lot as I consider things like potentially getting insurance and starting gig work. It was great to hear how others negotiated proper compensation and discussed the challenges that sometimes arise with educating event organizers on the cost and risk of fire performance.
The BubblesRFun vendor had the cutest shop full of whimsical and delightful things. She collaborated with Flowcraft Galaxy to create an amazing bubble dragonstaff prop that she let people play with. Very lovely people to chat with as well.
Every Flame event or Burn has its daily fire safety meetings. They went as usual. But next time I go to a fire safety meeting – I have a new item of safety to share. I installed something called “flowers” on my fire staff. It’s a piece of frilled rubber that slows the rotation of the staff and adds some visual flare. I talked to someone that had one, and they told me it was fine to have it very close even touching the wick. Well, I disagree. Because, it appears that as my flowers went a little too close to the wick, and when I lit up, they caught fire and began to melt. At first I was confused as to what was happening. I knew I had fueled my prop properly and spun off – but yet I was seeing pools of melty fire fall to the ground. I quickly went to a safety and had them put out my prop. All was fine, but I’d like to spread awareness of this because it was very scary and someone could have gotten hurt.
There are showcases on Friday and Saturday nights. The showcases are amazing performances from participants and instructors that never fail to inspire. After the showcases, the DJs would play and after a short interlude of LED performers in the circle, the fire circle would begin.
I visited the Understaff3D booth and had an amazing time chatting with the maker before caving and purchasing the dragonstaff and fans he had for sale. His modular dragonstaffs are the ultimate expression of everything we love about 3D printing. Some of the parts are impossible to create with other manufacturing methods, and he can create custom variations for his clients. By using flexible filament it also has amazing durability, and is able to be slammed into the ground without breaking. I particularly love that he was able to bring his own visionary art into a unique flow prop.
I also hung out quite a lot with Singing Waters Pottery camp that I hung out with the previous year. They do amazing pottery and are just cool people all around. They let me borrow power from their generator, and thats why I was able to get the footage I did despite my failure to prepare my power banks. As well as be able to tell the time and use maps to get home. Many thanks to them for that.
There was a lot of public (such as during the showcases and forums) and private discussion on mindfulness and intention that I greatly enjoyed. I think the discussions helped me progress both in my practice of the flow arts and with community building.
Saturday night, I pulled an allnighter which is partly why my recovery was pretty hard. But it was worth it because the closer to morning it got, the freakier and cooler it got. For example, while I was volunteering as a safety (a person whose job is to be aware and help in case of fire safety incidents) there was a suspension shibari performance where the model spun fire with multiple props. I later met the rigger later, and was able to talk to him a bit more about his art.
Sunday morning, I put on my beautiful set of earrings from Lucid Soul Creations and favorite green dress from Harmonic Threads, went for the raffle and closing ceremony, said my goodbyes to all the new friends I could find, and packed up to leave. Managed to safely arrive home upon which I immediately threw myself onto the couch for some rest.
So all and all, Flame Festival 2024 was everything I wanted it to be. I have a renewed energy for flow arts and the community. I always feel so humbled and inspired by the amazing artists of all types that I see at Flame. I’m so glad events like this exist, and huge shout out to the organizers and the people who made it the transformative and all-around excellent time that it was!
Thoughts of an infonaut 