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Playing with fire By TIM BOUSQUET Tidings Correspondent Call it poi spinning. Or fire twirling. Or spinning fire. Or just call it fire dancing. But whatever you call it, it has arrived in Ashland. Fire dancing events happen twice a week in the downtown plaza. On Mondays, at the only time they could secure a noise permit from the city, dancing troupe El Circo performs for about twenty minutes. On Sunday evenings, the Ashland Street Performance Tribe hosts a more freewheeling dance party that lasts for about two hours. Each event can attract up to a hundred observers. Above, Reuben Davis swirls a fire wand during a recent Monday night performance on the Ashland Plaza. Left, fire dancer Darrah Danielle entertains a large crowd during a recent Monday night performance on the plaza. Ashland Daily Tidings photos/Denise Baratta El Circo has about ten people performing tightly choreographed dancing, complete with colorful costumes. "It's a circusy-techno kind of thing," said member Rueben Davis. Davis explains that his brand of poi spinning came out of the rave scene. Raves are all-night dance parties that make use of rhythmic electronic music and twirling lights. "But I hate the word rave, because it's kind of a clich�," said Davis. "It's not about lasers, Ecstasy and drugs." Nonetheless, ravers have long danced with glow sticks, flexible fluorescent glow-in-the-dark tubes, and fire dancing was a natural progression. "For thousands of years the Polynesians have danced with burning poi, and that was taken up here," Davis said, showing an artificial poi built to be soaked in gas and lit on fire. The poi is attached to a two-foot chain, which is swung by the dancer. The Ashland Fire Department has okayed the use of the burning poi in the Plaza, and El Circo has two licensed pyro technicians in the group. Gigs in coastal states Davis, 32, who has been dancing since he was twenty, says that El Circo came together about three years ago. In addition to the Plaza performances, the troupe plays at dance parties and at Club 512 in San Francisco. Last year El Circo secured a Forest Service permit to put on a performance atop Mount Ashland. "We had two 60-foot geodesic domes," he explained. "In one dome we had dance and performance, in the other it was kind of like a tea room, for people just wanting to kick back." El Circo accepts donations at its performances and uses the proceeds to pay for a trip to the annual Burning Man Festival, held last week, in the Black Rock Desert, where they perform. Davis, however, was left in Ashland to run his business, the Lowdown Piercing Salon on Third Street. Davis sees poi spinning as much more than dance. "We bring together sculpture and art, performance art, a new way of expression," said Davis. "There's a circusy-tribal aspect to what we do, is something that our culture is sorely lacking." The troupe's Web site, www.elcirco.org, suggests that fire dancing is something of a spiritual exercise. "Through costume, environment and spectacle we touch the hearts and minds of audience and performers alike," reads the Web site. "Mythic characters and themes, dreamtime imagery, and futuristic sound, light and setting combine to stimulate the psyche and flood the imagination, drawing us closer to a higher vision of our selves and our greater potential. ... In order to bring forth what is in us, we weave a myth, all synthesized within massive geodesic domes into a 'circus of the senses' where the psyche emerges and the soul is given its body." A deeper meaning Other fire dancers also see the art as a spiritual expression. "It's a really good way for people to get their emotions out," said Foxfire, an organizer of the Ashland Street Performance Tribe. "With the dance, the fire, it's very healing. It feels good. It spreads the message of love and life. It's the start of a revolution." Foxfire aims his art squarely at adolescents, who he calls "the young elders." The Sunday night event is not so much a performance as it is a class; Foxfire invites young people and their parents to learn the dance steps and the use of the burning poi. "Kids are pissed off and have no way to express themselves," he said. "This is a very good outlet for them - for their artistic sides. "I think it's time we listen to the children," he continued. "Our generation has failed, and we need to pass the baton to the next. Let's hear what they have to say." Different paths Foxfire's journey to poi spinning was unique. "I was in the computer world for ten years, then received a transmission from outer space," he said. "It was Timothy Leary, and he took the computer chip out of my body and told me this is how I should live my life." With that, he and his wife took to the road for ten years, selling poi, fire staffs (big sticks with fire at each end), fire fingers (gloves with fire at the fingertips), and other toys. Foxfire now works as a dishwasher at the Black Sheep, but he continues to sell toys, seeing it as something of a mission. "We're healing the world one toy at a time," he said. He also employs young people to help him sell the toys at fairs and other events. "I teach them about business, about being in business in an ethical way, and they learn lots of skills," he said. Poi spinning likewise becomes a vehicle for social activism for Foxfire. Donations given on Sunday night are used to buy food that is distributed free the following Sunday morning in Lithia Park. "We're spinning a little discord with love and fire," he said plainly. 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