Poi Fire Dancing Spinning Performance & Twirling (Hoop Staff Fans Also)

What: Temple of Poi 2010 Fire Dancing Expo
Where: Union Square (Geary and Post)
When: April 24, 2009 at 7:50-10:10 pm
Cost: Free!!

Bring a chair and a blanket and join us April 24, 2009 at 7:50 pm for our fifth annual free fire dancing show in San Francisco’s legendary Union Square (Geary and Post) for the fourth annual Temple of Poi Fire Dancing Expo.

This year’s show is a veritable who’s who of internationally renowned fire dancing performers hailing from 3 continents including:

• MCP (Edinburgh, Scotland) - dragon staff solo
• Redox (Temple of Poi) - poi solo
• Aileen Lawlor (Oakland, CA) - wand and contact staff
• Memory Elena & Corey White (Bay Area) - fans
• Alien Jon (Currently residing somewhere on planet Earth) - poi solo
• Dyami & Wryly (Santa Cruz, Ca) - single poi duet
• Bradley Allbee (West Los Angeles, CA) - poi solo
• Sarah Starlight (Temple of Poi) - hoop solo
• Ian Boyd, Anthony ‘Broadway’ Rutland, Ayala Kalisher, Russ Megowan, Dyami Kaplan
  & Sara Huntley are Kinetica! (Santa Cruz, CA) - fans, staff, double staff
• Corey Just (Oakland, CA) - fan solo
• Erin Shredder of Shredder Hoops (San Francisco, CA) - hoop solo
• Celsius Maximus (Monterey, CA) - fans, swords
• Vin DeLuca & Solenne Alexa (San Francisco, CA) - staff poi duet
• Vatra (San Francisco) - poi solo
• Russ Megowan & Jake Yoshioka are Hybridz R Us (Santa Cruz, CA) - poi duet
• Zan & Aurora Moore of Instruments of the Now (Portland, OR) - poi duet
• GlitterGirl & Kahunahula (San Francisco, CA) - poi hoop duet
• Colleen Sullivan, Krista Borst, Emily Port, Don Keenan & Michael Henninger of Firish (Bay Area, CA) - hoop, fan, staff, poi
• Erik Aylen, Shaina Dyani Johnson, Bridget Harrison, Alysia Hook & Oliver Pavick are Copper Lantern Fire Theater (Oakland, CA) - wand, fan, poi, hoop and staff
• Matt McCorkle & Brian Thompson are Circus Conspiracy (Oakland, CA) - clubs
• Miss Rosie (San Francisco, CA) - hoop solo
• Rob Horner of PYRODYNAMICS Fire Dance Productions (Cairns, Australia) - 7 staves solo
• Adam Herscheid of Flames Of the Phoenix (Cairns, Australia) - double staff solo
• Adam Herscheid & Rob Horner are Flames of the Phoenix & Pyrodynamics (Cairns, Australia) - double staff duet
• Luis Chavez, Gatamala, Juicy Jess and Luna Del Fuego of Fire Euphoria (Santa Cruz, CA)
• The Amazing Baz & Drex are Ouroboros (Boston & Washington DC) - poi duet
• Mike Icon & Jenni van Tassel of Cirque d’Optique (Philadelphia, PA) - poi hoop fan duet
• Ansel Cummings & Kyle Ford of Pyrotechniq (Iowa City, IA) - umbrella, torches, poi
• Yuta (Tokyo, Japan) - poi solo
• Chryseph of Obsidian Moon (Seattle, WA) - rope dart, staff solo
• Madelaine “Wolf” Bukiet & Lauren “Madamn Burnz” Picheney of Las Piratas Del Fuego (Brooklyn, New York) - contact
• D. “Mac” Kaul, Dave “O.D.”  Kaul, Dave King (founder of Controlled Burn), Carlyn “Wrangler” Perona, Angel “Fire Angel” Schultz, Barbara “Dr. Soos” Slaughter, Brenda Ashworth, Evonne “Shelly” George, Katrina “Glitter Bee” Whitten, Kelin Whitten, Kurt “Titwi” George,  Mark “Lucky” Ashworth, Roger “Rogeman” Stimson, Sage “Safire” Ashworth, Shane “Saul Goode” Peterson, Tom “Moon Penguin” Fougner & Bill “Dammit Bill” Schultz from Controlled Burn (Reno, NV) - poi, fan, staff
• Banyan (Chicago, IL) - s staves
• Jaden Rose of Solar Flare (San Francisco, CA) - double hoop

The 2010 Expo also marks the 5th Anniversary of Temple of Poi Fire Dancing Expo and this show is once again on the City of San Francisco and Union Square’s Jewels in the Square Program. Jewels in the Square is an ongoing series of culturally significant presentations made in San Francisco’s Union Square in an effort to make diverse entertainment available to the public for free.

The creation of this event – selected in 2010 for the 4th consecutive year as one of Bay Area Dance week’s Cornerstone events – is a tremendous leap in the efforts to legitimize fire dancing as an art form by taking it out of parking lots and putting it on landmark stages like Union Square. The Expo celebrates safe, legally permitted, public fire dancing performance in honor of National Dance Week, an annual 10-day week of free public dance events in the Bay Area designed to showcase the dynamic diversity and critically acclaimed quality of Bay Area dance.

Temple of Poi supports this vision by creating an unprecedented opportunity to celebrate fire dancing at no cost to the artists or audience. This event is a not for profit event created with the intention of:

• offering more performance opportunities for fire dancers
• giving novice artists who might otherwise not have an opportunity to perform in a public setting an opportunity where they can invite friends and family to see them express their art
• increased exposure to the flow fire art forms by creating a legally permitted public event at a San Francisco landmark location
• raise the awareness of fire dancing as a prestigious dance form by holding this event on the opening night of National Dance Week

This $5000 event is being financed by Isa “GlitterGirl” Isaacs, Temple of Poi, Union Square Park and San Francisco, generous donations from Susan Drews Watkins and you! 

Due to the economic challenges of the current economy, we are requesting fiscal support in funding this event. If you’re moved by our cause to legitimize flow and fire arts, use the Chip-In link on this page to help defray the costs of the event which include fire permits (almost $800 for the fire permit) travel stipends for out of state artists ($1000), programs, marketing and more.

For all you performers looking to improve your skill as a performer — not your technique with the tool itself — here’s a great little perspective on why learning more skills may not be the place you need to focus.

When we perform, we’re in what we like to describe as an “energy bubble” here at Temple of Poi. If you expand the bubble by reaching out the audience, then you’re creating an energetic exchange in which you have a “dialogue” between you.

If, however, you stay on stage cloistered in your own bubble, then you become sort of this objectified thing that audience members are disconnected from.

Neither is right or wrong and they both work.

However, if you want to take the audience on a journey, it can often be easier to do that when you actually create the “dialogue” described above because when you shoot energy at the audience, they have an opportunity to do something with it: absorb it, deflect it, and/or reflect it.

If you think about the tentacle of energy you shot to them like a (friendly and desirable) virus, when they absorb it, that automatically changes your crowds energy and the people around them are likely to be infected with it to some degree also. If they reflect it, then not only are they impacted and infecting others around them, they are transmuting the virus of yummy performance energy back to you such that you’re performance is also changed. Even if they deflect it, they may be deflecting it to someone else who possibly absorbs it.

The more one shoots those tentacles to the audience, the more possibility of this transmutation is possible.

Ergo, if one is shy on stage and inward - which is often coupled with technical spinning - the audience is often left in awe but with little actual opportunity to do anything other than marvel.

We contend that a tech spinner who can also actively direct the tentacles of energy to the audience — weather they dance or not — will have a much more impactful experience on the crowd who will then infect them with more power which will have the performer have more powerful tentacles of energy passed to the audience, which causes more impact on the audience and so on in an upward spiral of positive energy that creates more and more powerful  performances overall.

So if you have the skills but don’t feel like you are getting the sort of response from the crowd you’d like, it might be fun to try to “reach out, reach out and touch someone…” with your energy and see how that changes things for you and them.

Please apply only if this vision calls to you.

Temple of Poi is hosting the 5th annual Temple of Poi Fire Dancing Expo in San Francisco, California, USA’s Union Square on the main stage. This event is free to the public and is open to audiences of all ages. Events over the past years have had an estimated 1000+ people in attendance. This year’s show is April 24 at 7:50 pm. Call time for dancers is 6:30 pm.

The purpose of this show is multifold:

• to expand awareness of the art form
• so that fire dancing artists can be taken seriously in the world through performance on credible stages in gorgeous venues rather than be looked at as fringe or parking lot art
• to share our art with the community and world
• to celebrate National Dance Week (April 23 - May 2)
• to offer artists from around the world an opportunity to perform for a very grateful and more attuned than average audience
• to allow artists the opportunity to be on a top notch stage which is huge (70ft wide by 30 feet deep), elevated and inspiring
• community service
• as a spiritual practice of giving from a place of non attachment to results

While we had intended, in part, for this to be a marketing event when the first show was produced — as a renegade in 2004 — the reality is, it hasn’t work out that way. Despite any rumors to the contrary, Temple of Poi has never made a single penny off this show and has never gotten a single client because of the show alone. Not once. We know this because we ask client’s how they find us and never has this show been credited as the reason.

In order to maintain the integrity of the vision of the show, we do not pay any performers. Period. No exceptions. MCP, Icon, Yuta, Banyan, Dai, Manda Lights, Thomas, Alien Jon, Vatra and all the rest of the artists who have graced our stage have not gotten paid. They have gifted themselves and their art to the show and community.

To be clear, the 2008 show (the biggest one so far) cost about $6000 to put on. These days getting up on the stage costs nearly $2000 alone. In 2008, we gave about $1200 in travel stipends on top of that. That doesn’t include any marketing, sound systems, hiring for assistance in organizing the show, etc. required to create a show of this magnitude. In 2009, we gave $1000 in travel stipends, all of which was raised through the generous donations of friends and members of the Temple of Poi Community. We will again be offering travel stipends in 2010.

We do this as a gift to the community. And every artist who gets up on the stage does it as a gift to the community as well.

All of that said,  we do have a limited number of travel stipends for artists. All travel stipends go to artists outside of California and states bordering California. This year, we hope to have 10 $100 travel stipends and will be awarded at our discretion.

Guidelines for Applicants

• Interested applicants must submit their application via email to GlitterGirl at: 2010expo (at) templeofpoi daht com by noon pacific time, February 5, 2010 in order to be considered.
• All applicants must submit four things:
  • A completed information sheet - only one per group
  • A signed agreement sheet for each person in the group to be included in the fire permit application - please print, sign, scan and email it back
  • a URL with a link to a video submission of the proposed piece or similar piece (or something representative of your work), ideally using fire
  • a signed  video release form for each person performing as part of your group - please print, sign, scan and email it back
• Restrictions/Agreements:
  • Call time: For tool and costume inspection will be 6:30 PM. You must be there with your tools in working order by that time.
  • No tosses! Tosses were not allowed in 2009 and will not be allowed in 2010 — there was a $300 fine per toss implemented last year, so write your act without tosses. This is a restriction imposed by the fire department, not by Temple of Poi.
  • Stage Time: Solo acts are limited to 4 minutes; Group acts are limited to 6 minutes
  • Spin off: Artists agree to spin off their tools before taking the stage.
  • This is a white gas only show! Because the stage is very slick already, we do not allow the use of lamp oil since it does not evaporate and creates a safety danger for performance acts following your group. Artists must have prior experience spinning with white gas only.
  • Prohibited tools/acts: Fire spitting, fire works, propane tanks (or any fuel under pressure), steel wool or anything else that will leave residue on the stage are all prohibited for fire permit reasons.
  • Costumed requirements: For permit and safety reasons, all artists must wear natural fiber.
  • Soloists: Solo acts must have a separate application, even if you are part of a group.
  • Groups: Each group must apply with one application and a designated contact person. All members of the group must be listed on that application. All members of the group must complete sign a video release form.
• In an effort to support a diverse show, priority will be given to artists more than 150 miles from San Francisco. After all, they are coming quite a long way to donate their time, energy and brilliance to a Bay Area fire show!
• We are pleased to announce that there will be a limited number of stipends made available to out-of-town performers. They will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Please note on your application if you would like to be considered for a stipend. All travel stipends go to artists outside of California and states bordering California. In 2010, we hope to have 10 $100 travel stipends which will be awarded 1 per act.
• This is a non-profit event; therefore, performers will not be compensated monetarily in 2010.
• Artists must have prior experience extinguishing burning tools.
• Artists must agree to abide by the Flowology Mindset® as related to the event:
  http://templeofpoi.com/flowology/mindset.php

As we near the end of the footage from the 2007 Expo (most of the rest was either off stage or the sound didn’t), here’s a fun little student piece featuring the oldest and youngest performers of the evening. This 5 person piece features Gen as the oldest performer (58 at the time) and Danica as the youngest performer (13 at the time) of the evening with three other hot ladies in the middle. This is a student performance which was the premier fire performance for most of the students. Enjoy this set as Delicious takes the stage.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (27.2MB)

In an effort to be even more environmentally friendly and accommodate all types of tools, here’s the new Temple of Poi spin out technique for permitted events (a version based on what I used with Pyrotechniq when we were in the Bahamas) that required no dry wall and meets SFFD regulations (best as I understand them).

The fuel area:
All dipping buckets and catch buckets are placed on top of trays (aluminum trays with a lip on them) so that any excess fuel does not contaminate the surface underneath. All fuel can be recycled to the buckets by pouring them back in; thus, it is ideal to have two trays under each bucket — one to recycle, one to catch recycled fuel. These are then disposed of after the show.

Spin out:
Each tool is placed in a baggie and then spun out. The baggies are ziplocked closed and, in as much as possible, hold only the wick so the fuel does not splatter on the rest of the tool. Large/unusual size tools (like swords) can use garbage bags if necessary, though, generally, squirt bottle application not requiring spin out is best. After the tool is spun out, the excess fuel then gets recycled to the bucket.

Process for each tool:
Fans and hoops get one ziplock baggie for each wick. Best to use sandwich baggies for these. All of these can be applied at once and the tool can then be spun out.

Poi (rope dart and meteor) heads can both be put into a 1 gallon ziplock and spun out at the same time. Some poi ropes might require a 2 gallon ziplock, depending on the size.

Staves should be handled one head at a time, or, if you’re doing double, 1 head of each double at a time. Attach the ziplock bag to the head (1 quart to 1 gallon, depending on the size of the head(s)), close it as much as possible. Then, grabbing the staff from the other *non fueled* end, whip it around like a baseball bat several times to get the excess fuel to spin into the zip lock baggie. Recycle fuel, dip other end, and repeat.

What you’ll need (all of which can acquired at Safeway or Costco or something like that):
- 1 box sandwich baggies
- 1 box 1 quart baggies
- 1 box 1 gallon baggies
- 1 box 2 gallon baggies
- possibly tall kitchen bags, depending on tools. Highly recommended use squirt bottles not dipping method.
- 2 catch trays per dipping bucket (therefore, 5 buckets needs 10 tray)

A few months back we released this 14 person fan piece on YouTube and now you can enjoy it on our podcast. This short piece (sadly, cut off by the lack of width on the camera framing) featured Temple of Poi students who put this performance together in about 6 hours. The set is from the Temple of Poi 2007 Fire Dancing Expo held in San Francisco’s landmark, Union Square. The original video was shot in April of 2007 as part of National Dance Week at the 2nd Annual Fire Dancing Expo.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (17.8MB)

As we continue with our artist profiles for the Temple of Poi 2009 Fire Dancing Expo & 7 Year Anniversary, we spotlight our last performer in the show, event producer and Temple of Poi Founder, Isa “GlitterGirl” Isaacs. 

Isa’s transformation from a high-tech corporate couch potato klutz to an internationally renown fire dancing icon has inspired people from all walks of life to believe in the possibility of creating a life that has passion and purpose. While she considers herself a fun, skilled, entertaining and awesome poi, hoop and fan dance performance artist, Isa’s work as an entrepreneur and instructor bringing these arts into the public is a far more unique aspect of her contribution to the flow and fire arts community.  

In her quest to help people experience more freedom through flow, Isa founded Temple of Poi. The school and community empowers artists to gain greater facility with their body movement and increase body awareness through the use of poi and other flow tools as well as developing their practice. Isa’s work extends beyond the tools themselves and her focus is on personal development and self transformation using the metaphor of toys as a way of developing a more wholesome life practice. 

As an entrepreneur, Isa was able to draw upon distinctions from her diverse background and 15 years of experience in systems engineering, computer consulting, customer support, courseware development, training, marketing, project implementation and department management. While her career in the computer industry garnered her financial success and various awards for performance excellence, Isa sought to integrate her artistic passion and creative desires with her entrepreneurial spirit which has resulted in building the premier poi school in the world.

In addition to her corporate career, Isa spent over 25 years exploring various music projects and instruments including voice, flute, electronic music composition, and has written, recorded and published a CD of original songs performed on piano. Initially drawn to San Francisco dance parties because of the music, she began dancing to the electronic beats in 1998 and after two years, she found poi. Over the next two years, she developed and honed her artistic skills and after leaving her corporate job in February 2001, she became a professional poi fire and light dancer in February 2002. 7 years ago, on April 25, 2002, Isa taught her first official poi class and by Summer of 2002 she had named the teaching facility Temple of Poi.

Since then, she has worked with thousands of individuals around the world concentrating her work in the Bay Area with hundreds of clients who practice with her regularly over the years. As an instructor, her work is about helping people empower themselves to be more expressed, have more fulfilling lives, face adversity courageously, be fully embodied and live authentic lives that flow from a place of integrated mind, body and spirit practices.

Temple of Poi has emerged as a popular dance studio in San Francisco and Isa will be taking her work around the USA this summer, offering Boot Camps in Chicago, Dallas and Bend (and maybe more places to come — contact her for classes in your city). Isa, also known by her performance name “GlitterGirl”, has been internationally recognized as a dance performer, appearing as a finalist in the Circle of Lights 4 and Circle of Lights 5 videos and has won three local Best of the Bay awards, including “Best Dance Studio.”

The historic 2009 Expo is the 9th not-for-profit show she’s produced in Union Square and is the culmination of her work, so far, in the flow and fire arts community. This event, like the previous 2 Fire Dancing Expos, is funded by her and the community and has been selected as a Cornerstone Event by National Dance Week. In addition, this is the second show she has produced as part of the City of San Francisco’s Diamonds in the Square program.

When she is not teaching, performing or developing Temple of Poi, she can be found pursuing her own evolution and development in body, mind and spirit, bringing the wisdom she gains to the school and community.

Enjoy these additional clips of Isa performing.

As we continue with our artist profiles for the Temple of Poi 2009 Fire Dancing Expo & 7 Year Anniversary, we spotlight Bliss Butterfly.

Bliss is a passionate dance artist, choreographer and teacher. She currently lives in Oakland, Ca where she recently relocated to pursue her career and further her training in circus, dance, yoga and healing modalities. With love, ambition and creativity she explores life and in the finest of moments experiences bliss that the heart of art presents. Bliss creates and welds fire fans, fire fingers, fire staffs, poi, hula hoops and other instruments of inspiration as she finds a connection to all aspects of her craft.

Dance has always been a natural part of her life since childhood. Amidst the numerous forms she has encountered, bellydance has been a profound inspiration for Bliss. Her most influential training was in 2002 with Amy Sigil, two years of dedication as bellydance sunk its’ roots and took hold. With her dance partner, Serene, Bliss co-founded Fey Fusion, a dance duet creating a unique blend of afrobelly, hip-hop, and modern dance. When fire art entered her realm in 2004 with fire fans, a whole new range of possibilities opened and she began attending and hosting weekly practice. Bliss has actively taught weekly classes and playshops at events and festivals in yoga, bellydance, hoop bellydance, fire bellydance, and double staff dance to promote skillful practice in the community and share her love of movement art.

Bliss performs with her bellydance partner of six years as Fey Fusion, with Jonny Zion and Liquid Fire Mantra creating ritual fire art, and in creative collaborations with many other talented artists. She can be found flying solo as Bliss Butterfly, bellydancing with or without fire at events and festivals locally and internationally. To lessen the impact of fire dancing on the environment Bliss and her partner, Jonny Zion, are gradually switching to non-petroleum based fuels. Bliss is dancing a non-fire crystal double staff choreography at the Flow Show April 24th, offering a prayerformance of her intention to see change in the art form. At this same show, Bliss will be performing a Buugeng duet with Ian Michael Smith. She will be teaching workshops this summer at Fire Drums, Wild Fire, and at numerous locations across the nation. To find out more about classes, workshops and performances visit Bliss’ website. Enjoy these additional videos of Bliss. 

As we continue with our artist profiles for the Temple of Poi 2009 Fire Dancing Expo & 7 Year Anniversary, we spotlight Manda Lights — a group of 4 French artists (Ima, Meast, Maelle & Forka) who come together to bring you their show, SURYA.

Follow the artist of Manda Lights through the world of “Sûrya, the initial fire”, an inspiring show where several kinds of flames dance and spin through an electric and enchanting atmosphere. Naturally wild, Sûrya is the divine flame : chased but uncatchable, shiny but still mysterious. The dancers know how to control it, they understand its deep essence and language.

Impressive, massive or sensual flames, sparkling rain and hypnotic dances, graphic spinning, illusions, choreographies and pyrotechnical manipulation, Manda Lights gathers everything to make you feel the fascinating magic of the most powerful of all elements.

Please enjoy this additional video of Manda Lights. 

As we continue with our artist profiles for the Temple of Poi 2009 Fire Dancing Expo & 7 Year Anniversary, we spotlight Meast who will be performing with her partners Ima, Meast and Forka in Manda Lights.

Maelle has grown in the Parisian fire spinning scene and throughout the past few year has acquired the reputation of an innovative and technical artist through videos broadcasted via international specialized forums. This sensual and graceful performer produces hypnotical circles and spirals with fire and LED lighted instruments, making her audience disconnect from reality.