San Francisco Blog

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The Crucible's Fire Arts Festival is the kind of event that makes you think, "Ah, so this is why I still live in the Bay Area. I mean, after the high cost of living crushed all my dreams." Sure, fire art and fire performances are nothing new, but the four-day event packs the best of them together into one place -- a parking lot next to the West Oakland Bart station (which is also right off the freeway, for you sinners). The show has plenty of heat, fire, and explosions. The fire department is on hand with hoses and trucks -- on opening night, they had three trucks. The artists can be found next to their installations, in their cowboy hats and interesting hair. Ask nicely and some might let you press the fire buttons. There's also a game called Dance Dance Immolation. To play, you have to get into a fire suit, so you know what's going on with that. The whole thing has an air of barely contained danger, chaos, and fear, which is how it should be, but there's also a sense of beauty, peace, and togetherness, which is not bad either. A stage sits in the middle of it all, the home of the nearly naked fire dancers and musicians and (starting at 10 p.m. each night) the The Fire Odyssey, a full production that tells the tale of Odysseus using fire, smoke, song, and lots of contraptions, some of which are swung to the stage over the audience using a crane (and it's a nice, large crane, the same kind currently being used to reformat most of downtown S.F.). The festival lasts till Saturday night, and if you go, rest assured: You'll be finished with fire art for a good 12 months. It's that good.

---Michael Leaverton