Fire Arts Festival

July 15, 2009
At an abandoned parking lot beneath an overpass to the Bay Bridge between a field of dry weeds and the Oakland Water Treatment Plant
Review and Photos by Sam Prestianni 

Better Than: Maker Faire, cousin to Burning Man


How do engineers feel cool? They get hot at the Fire Arts Festival, the Bay Area's premier showcase for exploding sculptures and all forms of fire play, second only to Burning Man.

The spectacular four-night event (which runs through Saturday) is the primary fundraiser for the Crucible, an Oakland-based non-profit that teaches flammable fun to students of all ages. Classes include both old- and new-school skills--from blacksmithing and glassblowing to light-bright electronics and kinetic machine-making--and all of these rare talents were on display at the opening night of this year's ninth annual blowout. One of the most memorable exhibits was the Fire Vortex, a frightful game of man taming nature, if propane-fueled flames spurred into not-so-tiny tornadoes by a pair of guys in shiny jumpsuits with huge splashing wands and a half-dozen industrial-sized fans can be said to be nature. Another was a remote-controlled pendulum, breathing fire from canons at its four corners as it swooped and swirled like a Battlestar or an excessively agile ballet dancer.

A stunning outsized gyroscope of sorts, a postmodern tribute to Galileo, perhaps, looked like a solar system that could have spawned I-Robot. And CoolNeon.com's extraordinary light boxes, strobes, orbs, and pressure-sensitive floor tiles (think Dance Dance Revolution for the kitchen choreographer) combined technology and artistry into exquisite consumer goods made possible by the global economy (the EL wire comes from Israel, the manufacturing's done in China).

Beyond the installations and artist booths, the festival featured a main stage for a host of performances, from the Fire Arts Collective dancers--who belly-writhed and discoed the night away with burning batons, whips, hula hoops, and jump ropes--to Whirling Dervish Aziz Abbatiello, who spun round and round to classic Sufi music with the hem of his cassock a flickering halo at his feet. There was also a dirty guitarist slopping up Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze" while riding a unicycle, and a kick-up-your-boots late-night jam by ballsy bluegrass locals Poor Man's Whiskey.

The standout gig of the evening was Dan Cantrell's "The Rootabaga Opera," a musical-theatrical thrill ride through the Bay Area's American, Chinese, and Eastern European cultural roots, inspired by the children's stories of poet Carl Sandburg. The piece was done up in style with a massive cast of singers (including the luminescent Kitka), dancers, musicians, puppeteers, and performance artists. Blasts of fire punctuated the entertaining storyline, which had something to do with Newsies, trains, and an adorable goat and goose, though it was impossible to follow the narrative in the chaos of the multisensory overload. Of course, this didn't matter as the soundtrack entranced, moving deftly from country hoedown to uptown jazz to Tom Waits-like carnival antics, Brechtian drama, haunting folksong, and so on. So much fire, so little time... I intend to go back for more later this weekend. (See thecrucible.org for details and tickets.)