Under a blood-red moon, sophomore Chris Meadows smoked a pipe before warming up. The sweet scent mingled with the heavier smell of gasoline, thanks in large part to freshman Kendrick Burke. As Burke kept busy painting the beach along Lake Monroe with fuel and lighting it again and again, Meadows reminisced about the time his friends decided to burn all the leftover Christmas trees in Bloomington.\n"The flame must have been, what, 40 feet high? And we used too much gas ... there was a minor explosion," Meadows said. "We ran. I didn't know I could roll with my feet moving that fast."\nMeadows and his friends like it hot. They gather from time to time on a secluded Lake Monroe beach to hang out and show each other a good time. But a good time with this mix of IU students and area high schoolers is a different beast than most -- they entertain themselves on the weekends with a combination of gasoline, high-risk stunts and a love of all things burning.\nMeadows' talents are just right for the evening: he breathes fire. Like something straight out of a sideshow, he can launch a fireball five or six feet long using nothing but his mouth and a torch. From time to time, he and his like-minded peers heat things up with all-out performances. \nTypically, the show begins far south of town, down back roads canopied by dark trees, over a grassy slope and snuggled up to the edge of the lake. About 10 friends from around Bloomington might attend, but the middle-of-nowhere location is important because fire regulations prevent the students from gathering the way they do within city limits -- whether there is fire performing or not, there is invariably a flame of some kind.\n"Our fire should be visible from space," said freshman William Ayrea, on this mild September night. \nHe and Burke stoked a good-sized bonfire with pages from Auto Trader magazine. The two moved comfortably in unusually close proximity to the fire, a necessity for the acts they were preparing. Although Meadows, Ayrea and Burke have different specialities, they are alike because they perform only for their own gratification. Ayrea is an apprentice to Meadows, who is teaching him the skill of breathing flames. \nBurke takes another approach by practicing fire poi, an ancient New Zealand ritual.\n"Fire poi is ... hard to explain. You just have to see it," Meadows said. \nThe idea is simple enough: Two thin chains are wrapped at the ends with flammable material. The performer dangles one chain from each hand and ignites the opposite ends, then spins the chains around to create patterns in the air with the light from the fire. \nHaving spent the last two years honing his poi skills and the last 10 months working with fire, Burke complemented his fire-breathing friends soundly. Two years of learning to wield fire like a champ isn't much, but it's more than a year's experience up on his cohorts' slightly more dangerous show.
Passion Ignited\nLast March, Meadows and a friend found themselves in Florida over spring break -- audience to a street performing fire breather. The spectacle stirred the pair deeply. So deeply, in fact, that latent urges borne from their respect for the element manifested themselves for the first time.\n"It's what really gave me the push," Meadows said, although he had been considering taking up the practice for a number of years. \nIgnoring a lifetime of lessons from Smokey the Bear, the two taught themselves to breathe fire upon returning to Bloomington. (They kept in contact with their Floridian inspiration, solicited advice and took safety precautions. However, in the end, they agree they were very lucky to escape serious injury at first. Among performers and fire artists, it is generally noted that the only advisable method of learning such a potentially painful skill is directly from an expert. \nIn fact, www.juggling.org gives this warning: "Fire eating, particularly fire breathing, is possibly the most dangerous and potentially injurious art to be found in circus, theatre and street performing. Experimenting without knowledge may be fatal and the first steps should be taken ONLY in the presence of an experienced person who fully understands the dangers."\nThe risk is inherent in the procedure; really, the act of "breathing fire" might be more accurately termed "spitting fuel at a torch in a particularly impressive display." Breathing and breath control, in fact, are two of the main factors in determining the success of a performance, as well as the performer's likelihood of making it to the next performance.\nIt begins with the fire breather tonguing a small pocket of paraffin oil, known more commonly as kerosene.\n"You don't want that stuff to build up in your liver," Meadows said. "But paraffin is about as pure as you can get."\nFreshman Tyler Davies, a rookie fire breather, was quick to point out the downside.\n"It's kind of ... nasty, having lamp oil in your mouth," he said. \nThe students are aware of the carcinogenic threat impurities in the fuel can pose but somberly accept any long-term risk in favor of the present's show.\nOnce the paraffin is in his mouth and his chin is wiped, the fire breather raises his lit torch, careful not to breathe in, and shoots a spray of fuel at the flame from his mouth. A successful attempt climaxes with a fireball several feet long roaring into the air; however, a failed try could result in serious burns if the fire turns back onto the breather's hair or clothes.\n"It's kind of like blowing a raspberry," Meadows said. "And we have yet to have any serious accidents. Some singed eyebrows, but nothing too bad."
On With the Show\nMeadows put down his pipe, not oblivious to the irony that he would soon be smoking in a different way. He and Ayrea started shooting warm-up fireballs, each one whooshing several feet into the night, loud and powerful. Each fireball preceded a rinse -- lake water, this time -- and a violent spitting fit, a testament to the foul taste of the oil. A few feet away, Burke took up his poi and began to swing the excess fuel off them in an effort to avoid splattering the spectators with gas and/or flames. \nBy this time, lines of fire crisscrossed the beach. Someone managed to light even the surface of the lake, creating a train of iridescent ripples reaching out from the sand. Against this background, the fiery friends planned their finale. \nAlthough concerned primarily with how cool the display would be, the performers made no bones about safety. They cleared plenty of space for Burke to extend his arms, and calculated the precise angles necessary to avoid setting one another on fire. Once the details were settled, an onlooker created an arc of fire behind the three boys with the gas can.\nAyrea and Meadows coordinated their flames, counting to three with mouths full of paraffin, and Burke began to spin his poi between them. The fire breathers bookended Burke with jets of fire as he spun and danced under his poi, the yellow circles he drew in the air echoing the spiral on his tie-dyed T-shirt, and the land behind them burned in concert. \nDespite the success of that and previous demonstrations, none of the performers are too interested in becoming professional sideshow characters or street artists. \n"Fire breathing takes a lot of ... insurance," Meadows said.\nHe smiled.\n"But I can also juggle."\n-- Contact staff writer Jenny \nDavis at jeedavis@indiana.edu.
