Dancing with fire

Dance collective combines flames, movement

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

BY SHARON SULLIVAN
FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER

Women and men moved and danced under a full moon while twirling fire-ringed hula hoops and poi, balls on the ends of ropes and chains.

It had the feeling of a sacred religious ritual.

The performance was a city-sponsored 125th anniversary celebration last summer at Canyon View Park.

Audience members watched in rapt silence as they gathered around the Burning Desert Fire Collective, a group of live fire dancers based in Grand Junction.

With their typical focused concentration, fire performers skip burning rope, balance hula hoops lined with burning wicks, and do back bends under flames in a artful display of fire and movement.

“It’s primarily an art of spinning fire safely around your body,” said Burning Desert member Terry Catlin. “It includes the skills of dance, drama, and interaction. You don’t spin fire by yourself. There are duets, it’s interactive. So you have to have a lot of skills and practice in order to integrate it all together.

“It’s ancient and modern at the same time.”

The Burning Desert Fire Collective is made up of 10 local intrepid performers.

Ranging in ages between 20-something and 50-something, they are Abbie Jean Moore, Ryan Stringfellow, Laura Wright, Taya Rachlin, Bryan Moore, Sarah Cameron, Nathan Watchman, Terry Catlin, and husband and wife William and Heidi Bassignani.

By day, they work regular jobs as a teacher, an art director for an advertising firm and a college recruiter.

There’s a corporate trainer and a hypnotherapist. One’s a director of a community radio station. There’s also a hydrologist, yoga instructor and owner of a construction company.

They’re a collection of “free thinkers,” and yet the troupe is also a “full-blown professional business at this point,” Catlin said.

Burning Desert does marketing, has a booking agent and a Web site.

The fire dancers have performed in a wide range of venues including the Moab music festival Desert Rocks, Gateway Canyons Resort and at the La Parada, a summer ice show at the Glacier Ice Arena. The troupe has also performed for groups like the Rotary and Lions clubs, and birthday and Christmas parties.

Burning Desert won first place for the dance category during December’s Parade of Lights. The troupe performed a “stars and stripes” performance at the Bookcliff Country Club for the Fourth of July.

Every month near the time of the new moon around 7:30 p.m., the group gathers for a fire jam at Columbine Park.

“It’s open to anyone to watch, or has fire experience,” Heidi Bassignani said.

The 27-year-old Bassignani became intrigued with the art when she saw a fire belly dancer online two years ago. Bassignani convinced Catlin, the director of the belly dance troupe — Women’s Tribal Fusion — to learn the techniques with her. They found a fire teacher in Glenwood Springs with whom they traded belly dance lessons.

A short time later, Catlin and Bassignani met fellow fire dancers Abbie Jean Moore and Stringfellow. They joined forces, forming Burning Desert in 2006.

The risks

Catlin was burned on her arm at the 125th celebration performance at Canyon View. The scar is fading.

Bassignani has a couple of small ones near her wrist.

“Everybody who spins fire takes a few burns,” Catlin said.

They’re serious about safety, however.

“Whenever we use live fire, one person is continuously designated as a safety in case anyone catches fire,” Bassignani said. They carry fire extinguishers, wet towels and a first-aid kit.

“Safety protocol is huge,” Catlin said.

Each member carries $3 million fire performance liability insurance in case of an accident in the audience.

But there’s never been one.

“We take every precaution we can,” Bassignani said.

And if twirling inside a ring of fire isn’t daring enough, Catlin and Bassignani also do “fire eating” and “fire painting.”

Fire eating involves taking a small torch and putting the flame in the mouth.

“If you do it just right, the flame will still be on your tongue,” Catlin said.

“The trick is you don’t inhale,” Bassignani said.

Fire painting involves running small torches along the skin (usually an arm) where it deposits fuel and a flame momentarily.

Catlin and Bassignani learned the techniques from visiting “world-famous fire spinners.”

Neither Catlin nor Bassignani recommend doing any kind of fire spinning at home without training and prac­tice without fire at first.

“When Heidi and I first started learning we practiced without fire for six months,” Catlin said. Their teachers told them they needed to practice without fire until they were able to spin poi for two minutes without hitting the body.

They never use fire indoors. And “we never recommend children ever light anything on fire,” Catlin said.