Burning Sculptures to Benefit Scholars

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Six weeks after my introduction to fire dancing, I was asked to showcase my skills at the annual Sidewalk Arts Festival in Placencia. I had an arsenal of four sweet moves and had lit myself on fire only once, so I figured I could at least be entertaining. After I agreed to perform, I found out there was a juggler, drummer, and fire dancer from Brazil that would be joining me, which definitely took some of the pressure off! The Brazilian troupe didn’t speak any English, but thankfully I had spent the last month in Guatemala and Mexico and my Spanish was at it’s sharpest. Yes, I know….Brazilians speak Portuguese…but it was close enough that we were able to communicate! They invited me back to their apartment and a very creative girl painted wild tribal designs on my face and arms while the others changed into skimpy, circus-like costumes. Clearly these people were artists!

I was so thankful to have these performers at my side during my first show, and their presence allowed me to relax and just have fun with the fire! I was really pleased with the quality of my poi…..they burned for almost five minutes where my counterparts were having to relight about every other minute. And I had forgotten how SUPER AWESOME FUN it is to perform in front of a large, cheering audience!

Immediately after the show I was approached by a striking, friendly woman with salt and pepper dreadlocks wearing a long, colorful skirt. She introduced herself as Winsom and started by saying that she had come to the Arts Festival for the sole purpose of meeting me and seeing my performance. Huh? Turns out that Winsom runs an arts and education foundation in the Cayo District and they needed fire dancers for their annual fundraiser next weekend! I was flattered and impressed ….. I could fire dance to help raise money for educational scholarships? SWEET!

It was to be the Burning Man of Belize! The posters boasted of art, raffles, camping, games, food, music, beer tents, juggling, fire spinning, AND BURNING SCULPTURES! I recruited fellow fire dancers Angela and Anna to come from Guatemala to meet me at the festival, and convinced my friends Stasia and the Scott family to make the trip from Placencia. We all met up in San Ignacio on Friday night and after enjoying the local club scene, we ate fried chicken from the barricaded window of a closed Chinese restaurant. As we inhaled our late night snack on the sidewalk, Angela spied the street-wide banner for the Festival of Lights above us! We patted ourselves on the backs for being the “fire spinners” -- our first advertised performance -- and couldn‘t wait to meet the others!

Our plan was to camp at the festival Saturday night, so we stocked up the cooler at the Chinese market and headed up to Cristo Rey at about noon. We had rented an SUV for the trip and it was packed to the absolute max for only one night of camping! We had the two girls who were long term travelers, so they understandably had large backpacks ….. But the rest of the stuff? A full cooler, a case of beer, three gallons of water, one large tent, too many pillows and blankets (thanks Cindy!), kerosene, buckets, and the usual road trip supplies. And the spare tire too!

We borrowed the tent from Dave, a massive sprawling complex of two bedrooms and a screened porch, and assembled it first thing! After we unloaded most of the car into the tent, we walked around the expansive football field showcasing art, children’s games, and food. At one end of the field there was a row of statues, each one a different color child sitting on a miniature chair with a headlamp on its head. At first they were creepy, and then right when I began to accept them as art, the sun set and their headlamps started flashing crazy patterns and well….that was just creepy again! Just up the hill from the headlamp disco rave children were the sculptures that we were going to burn….except they were all these colorful beautiful towers of crepe paper that must’ve taken ages to make! I couldn’t believe we were going to light these, the best art at the festival, on fire!

We found Winsom and got our “Performer” badges (worn with PRIDE!) and a ticket for a free water and burrito. Nice! We also met Jam, the only other fire dancer at the festival (actually the only other fire spinning resident of Belize besides myself.) Before us, there were a plethora of impressive performances: the youth karate club and stilt walkers were the most memorable! After the stilt walkers, the four of us entered the circle of people gathered on the field, lit our poi on fire, and danced around for about 15 minutes! It was my first time dancing in a huge area like that, and, although it was tiring, it was liberating to fling my fire all over the place while running across the field! At the end of our performance, the crowd was directed towards the four paper mache sculptures and we were asked to pour our excess kerosene on them and START THE BURN! We all spun our poi behind the four burning towers, and as you can see from the video, the effect was dramatic! I love to see the fire truck rolling up in the background!

Soon after the burning, the festival petered out and we returned to our tent area -- which turned out to be someone’s backyard that we were unauthorized to use. Whoops. Anyways, Winsome said it had been rectified and not to worry -- enjoy the clear skies, peaceful jungle sounds, and not to worry, it’s a safe neighborhood. BUT, every part of Belize has it’s claim to fame….and this area seems to be known for it’s prolific snake population! The eyes BUGGED out of Stasia, Angela, AND Anna! I raised my hand and said that we had had a baby snake in our tent earlier that day, to which Winsome replied, “Even the smallest fer-de-lance, actually ESPECIALLY the smallest fer-de-lance, has a lethal venomous bite.” And with a giant smile she said, “Just be aware!” Ummmmmmm, my team was horrified. I thought I was afraid of snakes, but clearly these girls were even more leery than I. Anna declared she is sleeping in the car. Angela is definitely joining her. And Stasia tells us a story about going on a class trip in grade school tubing down a river in South Africa and being completely encircled by a massive river snake and well….she is NOT STAYING HERE!

Hahahaha, OK, back into town we go! Except now we’re packing up the entire truck of stuff in the dark, trudging through the tall thick grass, thinking any second a giant river snake is going to swallow us whole…
Of course you know we made it OK!! We got into town and found a very reasonable room with hot showers (which is totally what you need when you have a body covered in paint, glitter, sweat, and kerosene!) What were we thinking camping anyways??!!?!?!

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Photos

Note the tent floor...
...soon after this i spotted the baby snake amoungst the pipe cleaners!