Fire Dancing

About

NOTE: This page is a daughter page of: Dance

Fire dancing, also known as fire performing, fire spinning, is a wonderful expression of art and dance often known as "flow arts".

Child Pages

Related/Child Pages:

• Fire Safety for Fire Dancing
• Dance - Hawaii

Types of Props

There are many types of "props" people dance with. Just a few are:

• Static props: (think: anything stiff)
  • Fire staff & Dragon staff - Where the dragon stick is usually a cross at the end of the stick.
  • fire swords - As it sounds.. sometimes a real sword (legit!), sometimes more like a bat.
  • Fire knives - Traditional Samoan cultural implement that is used in ceremonial dances.
  • palm torch & fire fingers - Very easy to use as they extend from your palm or fingers.
• Dynamic props: (anything with rope)
  • Poi - Very common and popular, two short ropes, about a foot long, with a hanging wick/ball - One for each hand.
  • Rope dart - A long rope with a burning ball on the end which you can throw away from yourself, then snap back.
  • Fire whip - Exactly what you'd imagine.

History

Fire dancing started in Samoa with the fire knife used in ceremonial dance. It was originally composed of a machete wrapped in towels on both ends with a portion of the blade exposed in the middle. Fire knives are traditionally only danced with tribal drums, and they have annual competitions.

See Also

• Fire Safety for Fire Dancing

Links

• Fire performance - Wikipiedia

Acknowledgements: Dhevhan Keith (on Oahu) for introducing me to fire dancing. :)