fire in the streets.

friday night took me to richmond's hottest place for art. i remember the days of my childhood, wandering around a soon-to-be-deserted downtown area. i remember begging my dad for a piece of fudge from the 6th street marketplace. i remember there being a life to downtown.

which is why i think fire is the perfect spark for the monthly arts adventure called first fridays. it's an interesting construct - a virtual mix-up of young and old from all sorts of paths converging on these places, these galleries, to participate in an artistic search for meaning. why did the artist use this? or that? is that art? why does the right wall in 1708 resemble a collection of media flow charts? perhaps i'm at the adcenter too much lately?

i've seen a lot of mind-blowing art in the nearly two years i've wandered the pockets of broad street. but nothing captures my soul the way the fire spinners do. there's something inherently dangerous and mesmerizing about these artists twirling fire around their bodies, creating movement and speed. almost like an urgency because the fire, inevitably, will extinguish. i wondered what the motivations to do this are. how do you get into this? why do they remind me of a little family. and what do they think about all of us staring and gawking every month as they craft stories in flame?

the group in richmond is called the river city burners. their philosophy is
"The River City Burners aim to be a driving force in Richmond's art community. We are here to teach, entertain, and to reach out to anyone willing to expand their physical "beingness" and to open their minds to the wonderful world of self expression through the fire arts. We dedicate our time and energy into sharing our knowledge through performance and teaching others. Our lives have individually, and as a group, been touched, changed, and inspired through learning how to express ourselves in this unique and amazing artform. Not only do we want to show you how , we want to be open communicators and help spread the inner peace that comes with learning how to spin fire!!"

i suspect one of these days, i'll just ask them. i'm curious about how fire releases expression. and what that emotion is like. why fire? how do theatrics play into the mix? a whole bunch of questions. and why on earth did they theme friday's show to "the phantom of the opera"?

but, for the time being, i'll do the typically thing and point you to a site. where you can learn about the people i see every month. take a look at their photos. watch one of the movie clips. and i'll stalk through the forums. so sometime before this semester is over, i'll report back on what i discover about their artistic passion.

check them out:
http://www.rivercityburners.com/index.html