Performance Safety: Know When To Stop

This weekend, I had the privilege of being invited to spin in front of non-spinners for the first time at the housewarming party of my friends, Joe and Lyndsey.  It was very impromptu -- the speakers were set up, the campfire fuel was put out, and Lyndsey and Joe invited all spinners to give an improv performance, in front of Joe's parents and other non-spinning guests.

Unfortunately, in my case, it was a dismal failure.  But I am choosing to turn my poor experience into a cautionary tale, with another lesson that I learned in fire-spinning that night.

In fire-spinning, this is a bad idea.

In most performance arts, we are told that, when we make a mistake, the best course of action is to shrug it off, pretend that it never happened, and power through the performance.  This is something I heard many, many times during my nine years of figure skating.  If you think about world-class performers or athletes, if they screw up, they keep going.  Most of the time (unless, like in figure skating, it's a serious fall), the audience isn't going to know that you messed up.  Just keep going, finish the dance/routine/game.  In other words, fake it 'til you make it.

In fire-spinning, sometimes the opposite is true.  It is much more dangerous to continue the performance than to stop.

On Saturday night, I was doing my improv fan routine to "Howl" by Florence and the Machine. (Music video shown below).  This is one of my favorite songs.  I first heard it on a preview for Season 4 of "The Tudors" and I hope to some day choreograph a real routine to it and use it as a signature piece.

In the first fifteen seconds, I misjudged one of my turns, and I ended up smacking the right side of my face with one of the wicks of my fan.  Fortunately, I suffered nothing more than some singed hair and a partly-singed eyebrow, no further damage.  I wasn't hurt, but it stings (and God, does burning hair smell), and I was pretty shaken, to the point where I completely lost my place and forget everything that I had learned about fire spinning, all of my technique, etc.  To the point where I froze completely, with the fans pointed down, which is a terrible idea.  With the fan pointed down, the fire goes up, and burns the hands.  This is a rookie mistake, and one that I stopped doing the day that I first held fans.  This was the first time in months that I did that.  I couldn't think, I couldn't focus.

So I stopped.  I called my safety (my friend Matt), and laid the fans out on the duveytene, and he extinguished them.  Then I went off into the corner of the yard where the campfire fuel was, to assess the damage.

After nine years of skating, and three years of dance, it felt incredibly wrong.  I was very upset, I felt like a screw-up, and how dare I not complete the performance?  But Matt pulled me aside and said that I had done absolutely right.  Fire spinning is not like other performance arts.  If you are not "in your right mind" to do it, it can become very dangerous.  Had I continued to perform, I could have burned myself again, and badly this time.  

When a spinner is not in his or her right mind to perform, s/he should call a safety to extinguish the flames, stop the performance, and then take a breather for at least ten minutes.  This will give the prop enough time to "cool down" to the point where it can be re-lit (never soak your prop in fuel immediately after extinguishing the flame, when it is still hot to the touch), and give the performer enough time to gather him- or herself.  

I wish I could tell you that I got up again and performed, but I didn't.  I decided that was enough for one night, and stuck to safety-ing my husband and friends for the remainder of the evening.  David, Lyndsey, Joe, and Matt did a hilarious precision staff performance to one of the instrumental pieces from the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, and Lyndsey asked me if I wanted to work on choreographing a precision piece with fans to another Florence song (yes!).  So I guess the story has a happy ending after all.

The moral of the story?  Fake it 'til you make it...unless you're wielding fire.