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Yes, they do play with fire
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Fire dancing isn’t as easy as it seems. Listen to what it takes to do it from this guy from Germany and the plucky Russian girl
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DANCING WITH FIRE The fire dancers at work
She is vivacious, muscular and a bag of fun. He is tall, agile has the gift of the gab. This volatile duo literally sizzles. Alicia Golumb and Tom Heine manipulate around with some of the most ancient discoveries ever known to mankind - fire. They un
veiled their act recently at Le meridian when the new C Class Mercedes Benz was launched.
Tom Heine who was a clean cut corporate quitwhen he felt that the monotony was over whelming and he chose to bow to a talent that he never realised was latent in him. A German by birth, he coursed through Australia and finally sought refuge in Goa and went on to be a master in the realm of fire dancing.
Popular star
He is a regular on TV, and a prominent star at multifarious events. Intense concentration is the order during this kind of daredevilry, as they do not use any kind of self-protection whatsoever.
The swirling kerosene filled metal cups that had fire lapping outwards were gingerly balanced on batons it spoke volumes of the hours of practice as well as allegiance that goes into rare craft.
The pretty lass from Moscow, hot from The Boogie Woogie fame with numerous other appearances in the media to her credit, claims that this is much more than putting on your dancing shoes.
Each time she leaps to perform, she says she experiences an inner calm, and is able to regain a peaceful composure that is so hard to attain, considering the various politics that one’s life puts to test.
Tom agrees that it is absolutely true and he likens it to the campfires wherein we can unleash ourselves, mesmerised by the feverish voltage arising out of the flames. In fact the pitch level of the fire is so strong that during the feat they have to maintain their sense of direction just as blind bats would through a moonlight night.
The percentage of people intrigued by this daring art is on the rise today, but only 5 per cent would aim at professionalism, and perhaps a mere one percent would attain enviable status as they would be truly gifted, says Tom.
“There are women takers too,” quips Alicia, though few, but it adds to that extra appeal. Beginners take to the art just to amuse themselves but when you gravitate to a higher level, you begin to experiment with various artistic styles such as juggling, technical spinning which is a more sophisticated version as it involves chains, sticks etc.
It wouldn’t be possible to bring magic to your performance if you do not possess a sense of rhythm. For instance this sparkling duo combines the effervescence of martial arts along with movements that are heavily inspired from nature.
To delve deep you would also need to heavily rely on well coordinated as well as long standing relationship between your mind, body and soul.
Eventually you should be able to transcend mental barriers and purify your soul at the culmination of your act. Bruises and burns? Yes, once in a while, they answer. Besides, those shades of purple are temporary and too minuscule to be counted, after all no pain no gain!
They revere Indian traditions as they feel there is so much more that can be supplemented to their art from pre renaissance desi culture. The future hold great potential for this passionate art as Tom and Alicia have great plans for threading fire acts into the theatre, by integrating fire into the art of story telling, offset by stills from multimedia.
However they had a word of caution for their audience: “Don’t come too close to us. Your safety is of prime importance to us.” The event was got up by Fonix E2E Entertainment solutions.
PRIYANKA IDIKULA
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