A Burning Passion
Robbie Lewis and Paige Marmolejo will be the first to tell you their hobby is pretty dangerous. When you play with fire, you’re going to get burned — and they have the singed hairs to prove it.
“It has a rush about it,” Lewis said. “Fire has that same essence of getting your adrenaline up and it’s like, ‘Wow, did I really just do that?’”
As long as the burns aren’t severe, they’re pretty blasé about the possibility of losing a few hairs to the flames.
“You don’t even know until you’re done spinning [fire], and you smell burned hair,” Marmolejo said. “I’ve never seriously burned myself.”
Because they’re so calm about stepping onto the stage with a hula hoop, staff or other prop set ablaze, Marmolejo said many times their audience assumes there’s a trick or illusion.
“‘Is that real fire?’ is a common question that I get a lot. People just can’t believe that you would really be playing around with real fire,” Marmolejo said. “People ask that a lot with fire eating, too. They’re like, ‘What’s the trick to it?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s not necessarily a trick. I’m actually extinguishing the flame with my mouth.’”
Lewis, a Chelsea resident, and Marmolejo, a Southside resident, are the founders of the Luminarts fire performance troupe, which came together in October 2015. They, along with newest troupe member and Glen Iris resident Amanda Ruth Campbell, came to fire arts first through hula hooping.
“When you start hula-hooping, that’s when you learn that people who have been doing it, they also dabble in fire hooping and then you learn other props like poi [balls set on the end of ropes],” Lewis said. “It just opens a whole other world of flow, and being able to move and having a prop as your dance partner. And when you add fire, it just illuminates the experience.”
There’s more than one way to play with fire. Hoops and poi are the most common, but members of the Luminarts troupe can also breathe or eat fire, as well as perform with a staff, fire fans or unusually named props like a dragon staff or puppy hammer.
Marmolejo, who was in a fire troupe in El Paso, Texas, before moving to Birmingham, said the general rule is to practice with just the prop until you would feel comfortable performing with your eyes closed. Then, you light it on fire.
“Everyone — except for Amanda — usually practices with a regular prop and they graduate to the fire prop. So you don’t necessarily want to start learning with something on fire. It’s a process,” Lewis said.
Lewis said she has seen Campbell’s skills progress significantly since they met.
“To see Amanda when she first came, she was very rough. And I had the constant fear that she was going to catch her hair on fire — which you did, didn’t you?” Lewis said.
“I did,” Campbell replied. “And you put me out a few times.”
As seems to be typical for fire performers, Lewis described those instances as “small fires, you know, manageable.”
The Luminarts troupe was born out of the Community FireJam, held at Avondale Brewing once a month for novice and experienced fire performers to practice their skills and learn from each other. It also became the place where Luminarts found its first troupe members.
“We would try different ways of bringing community together and some of those efforts would dwindle, so we were always looking for something new,” Lewis said of the FireJams, which began in August 2015.
They also entertain the crowd that usually gathers in the brewery’s patio area. Fire spinning through the air tends to get people’s attention.
“[It] creates that element of wow for the audience, which is really fun,” Lewis said.
She recalled the first time she set a hoop on fire, when not only the heat but the noise of the flames surprised her.
The FireJam includes a different DJ every month, occasionally joined by members of the Birmingham Community Drum Circle. Luminarts has performed at The Happening at Trim Tab Brewing, UAB Latin Fest, Atrox haunted house and private events and parties.
Lewis said performing with fire has added “fun and warmth and danger” to her life. It’s a balance of being comfortable enough to take the risk, but not so comfortable that they get injured through carelessness.
“I’ve always been quiet, but dance is a way I can express without having to speak, which makes me nervous. And it’s just fun, and it’s good exercise,” Marmolejo said.
“Paige really comes alive when she gets fire. It’s like she becomes a completely different person. She beams,” Lewis added.
Campbell said fire performance has a similar effect on her.
“The fire, you can feel it in your soul and something about it, no matter how sad or upset or weird the day has been, I just go and spin fire, and everything’s better. I have all this joy and this peace, and I actually feel serene in these moments when I’m doing crazy tricks that are dangerous,” Campbell said. “It’s definitely one of the best parts of my life.”