Spin the Fire – My Week with the Fire Theater
The Fire Theater will perform on the Eco-Festival Kazanlak 2019. I had the chance to stay with them for a week, train, and eventually perform on the International Theater Festival Varna Summer. How was it, and what can you look forward to?
We had just started the Deep Roots EVS project and preparations for the Eco-Festival with the 12 new volunteers, when I left them and went on a new adventure – the actor’s life. It’s good to know the group which will present the most dangerous workshop at our festival. And, honestly, how often in your life will you get a chance to work with a professional theater and perform on an international festival in front of the public when you have no previous experience, nor adequate education? Volunteering gives you endless opportunities which would otherwise be far beyond your imagination.
The fire theater is a mime company not focusing only on the fire performances, but on different kinds of non-verbal and metaphorical expressions. You could kinda call them an “experimental” theater since they try to bring new ideas and adaptations. The show is always built on visual experience accompanied by dramatic music which hits your emotions and gives you goosebumps. The main body of the company consists of 4 people who work with a variable amount of international professional artists, trainees, and volunteers, who contribute to keeping the workflow up to current trends and sharing and developing the gained experience in their countries.
For the Varna Summer festival, we prepared a huge puppet light show called The Night of White Horses. On my first day, I was just trying to conduct the single puppets to see which one suits me better. In this show, every actor has two or even three roles/puppets to act with, and our current group was based on 6 artists who knew the play, and 2 absolutely inexperienced lambs, including me. It turned out to be pretty physically demanding. The puppets feel light and at the first moment, you have quite a lot of fun. But after half an hour you start to understand why the others call them heavy.
On the second day you have to build a stage and start to rehearse. You have to run with the puppets and do extraordinary pieces like a trained dolphin. Actually a horse in this case. And you have to rehearse the play again, and again. Changes made and you start rehearsing again, until everyone remembers what they are supposed to do. And then you realize: it’s not just the puppets what you have to change during the play. You have a costume too.
After three days you are pretty tired, and the fourth day comes. The day of two performances for two different kindergartens, which means: load a truck with all the puppets, stage, sound system, etc., go to the first place, unload the truck, build the stage, do the make-up, put on the costume, play the show, clean yourself, change, break down the stage, load the truck, go to the second place and do everything one more time. And you still haven’t rehearsed at night, which is pretty essential for the light show.
On the day 5, we were all exhausted praying for good weather. It was an outdoor performance on a city square and in case of rain, we would have just built the stage, prepared the scenery, then broken everything down and done it one more time the next day. Fortune was standing by our side, and when the sun went down, the music attracted and gathered an audience around the stage, the city lights switched off, and the show went on.
The Eco-Festival Kazanlak 2019
At our festival, it’s going to be quite different. It’s the Fire Theater, after all, so we want to spin fire! You all will have a chance to learn all the super cool things on the workshop on Friday – the 5th of July at 10 pm. Find more info in the article: Eco Festival Kazanlak 2019 – Program, or in the Facebook event. Concerts, workshops, summer cinema, and much more. No entry fee and free camping place!