Fire Arts Festival
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Each July The Crucible arts education center in Oakland, California holds the Fire Arts Festival, which celebrates creativity through fire and light with a spectacular open-air exhibition of interactive fire art, performance and the largest collection of outdoor fire sculpture on the West Coast. The Fire Arts Festival is a major fundraising event, and proceeds benefit The Crucible’s arts education programs for youth and adults.
1999
The first Fire Arts Festival was held on June 12, 1999.
2000
The second was held on July 8, 2000, and celebrated The Crucible's relocation to a warehouse with an additional 16,000 square feet for new programs, classes and performance spaces.
2002
June 22, 2002 marked the third annual Fire Arts Festival.
2004
July 7-11, 2004 was the fourth FA Festival, and the first to span more than one evening. Five days and nights were filled with awe-inspiring spectacles of fire and light at The Crucible's industrial arts facility and adjacent 100,000 square foot outdoor Fire Arts Arena in West Oakland. The festival was a wealth of workshops, classes, lectures and stimulating demonstrations showcasing innovative and thrilling artistic mediums, culminating in three different nights of mind-blowing performances, sculptures and exhibits from the best fire and light artists on the West Coast.
2005
The fifth FA Festival was held on July 12-17, 2005. The Crucible’s 48,000 square foot industrial arts facility and nearby 200,000 square foot outdoor arena in West Oakland. A full program of arts and educational events throughout six days and four evenings included lectures, classes, artist talks and arts demonstrations. The highlight was the many fire performances and fire and light sculptures featured in the outdoor exhibition arena on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.
2006
The sixth annual FA Festival was held July 9-12, 2006. Towering pillars of flame, cracking bolts of electricity, bodies dancing through fire – over 8,000 people experienced the four-day celebration of fire & light. Attendees came during the day to learn new skills at special Crucible workshops and classes, and then returned at night as the Fire Arts Arena lit up with fire performances, music and the works of innovative fire sculptors.
2007
The seventh annual FA Festival was held July 11-14, 2007. The festival showcased kinetic and fire art pieces, with over 30 installation artists contributing to the event’s success. Many of the kinetic fire sculptures, like the 168-foot long Serpent Mother, created by arts collective The Flaming Lotus Girls, which encouraged hands-on participation like controlling propane jets. Another interactive display, Dance Dance Immolation, by Interpretive Arson, challenged participants to match on-screen dance steps – with the penalty for a misstep being a blast of fire to the face (fortunately dancers were suited up in Nomex firefighter suits prior to testing their skills).
2007 was the first year that the Festival included a full-length feature presentation. The Fire Odyssey, an 11-act modernized interpretation of Homer’s epic poem, was performed each night of the festival. As part of their commitment to the West Oakland community, The Crucible provided 600 complimentary tickets to youth and adult members of its community, making good on their commitment to make art accessible to all.
2008
The eighth annual Festival, held on July 9-12, 2008, had 26 performance groups and over 30 art installations.[1]
2009
The ninth annual Festival was held in a new location, on the former Oakland Army Base just north of Grand Avenue, with three times as much space as the old West Oakland site. It featured the world premiere of Dan Cantrell's The Rootabaga Opera, a narrative musical presentation inspired by the children’s stories of poet Carl Sandburg.
References
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