Yanni and the Art of Fire Dancing

[ 1 Comment ] Posted by Dicky Relifonic on 09.13.07 under Dicky's Posts, Fire Dancing, Music

Yanni Fire Dancing

This is all you need…. You pull a jeep into an uninhabited area that can accommodate a fire. The Jeep must be equipped with a CD player and speakers that can be put on full volume. Also, the area you are occupying must have glorious trees that shed tree branches. Obviously these trees must be older that 30 years old. They must be trees that shed branches from the sky. Ok good, you are there. Now it is time to go collect the wood. Make sure you wear pants and apply a generous dose of insect repellent. In these types of environments, ticks love to hop on humans and dig in. I had a buddy who got a tick on his ass and we had to burn it off with a match. Not a fun thing. No one wants Lime Disease. Anyways. You are wearing pants and have repellent on. It is probably night time (fire dance, duh) so you should have a flashlight to assist you in finding solid wood. Just collect a good amount. There should be plenty on the ground. Ok, we have the wood now. Put it in a pile. Step one is done. It is on to step two. Step two involves building a fire. We are not going to give direct instructions on how to build a fire here. Everyone has different ways. “Dude, stack them like waffles!!!.” “No, you need more space between each twig in order to let the oxygen permeate the fire!!” Seriously, shut the fuck up. Just take the huge pile of wood you collected in the magical forest and put it in a fucking pile. Make sure you have enough space around the pile for the dancing. The jeep should be a good 10 feet away from the diameter of the fire. This allows enough room for dancing and fire jumps and still allows the Yanni music to be audible to the dancers.

Alright, we have the wood set up and the Jeep in a great position. It is time to choose the correct Yanni CD to put on for the first dance. What’s that you say? “Live at the Acropolis”?? FUCK NO. You start this off with CHASING SHADOWS. That is on “Ultimate Yanni”. Not sure what original album it is on.

Ultimate Yanni

We are not going to get into the nitty gritty details of Yanni’s whole catalog. I will just give the basics here. So all you are really going to need is “In My Time,” “Reflections of Passion” “Dare to Dream” “Ethnicity” “If I could Tell You”, “In Celebration of Life” and “Ultimate Yanni.”

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This gives you a good solid base along with CHASING SHADOWS off of the greatest hits album. If anybody recommends “Live at the Acropolis” ban him or her from the Fire Dance. Seriously. They don’t deserve it.

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Alrighty, the CD should be chosen from a CD case that has the Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds live CD, Blues Traveler (The one with the cat), Tracy Chapman(Give me one reason to stay here) and a couple of Jim Croce greatest hits CDs. Bad Bad Leroy Brown oh yea!! NO IPODS. Now turn the Jeep on so the headlights shine on the stick pile. It is almost time to light the fire. First, the dancers should pick out a couple of great sticks they found in the woods to use as their dancing props. Check your pile and you should find them. These don’t need to be lit while you dance, but must be sturdy to provide proper dance technique. If you want, you can use whatever so each side of the stick is lit when you dance, but it is not necessary. Now, just light the fire!! You should know that you need at least some newspaper to get it going or some tall grass. And you obviously have a source of fire (matches, lighter, etc). Alrighty!! The fire is burning!! Time to pop in the CD. CHASING SHADOWS is now playing. Start off slow… Feel those electronic keyboards pulsate through your stick. When the first bass line starts hitting, start picking it up a little. When that chord progression hits in, ROCK IT OUT.

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If you want to simulate the keyboard part and need to drop your stick for a bit, do it. You will need both hands to simulate playing the keys, so drop the stick. But pick it up when it is about to get going again. Listen, you are dancing to YANNI around a fire in the middle of nowhere. Nothing should stop you unless it is the full moon saying “HEY BUDDY, THIS THIS IS WAAAAY TOO INTENSE!!” I doubt it though. The full moon is part of a Yanni Fire Dance. You respect the moon and the moon respects you. You respect Yanni and Yanni respects the Moon. The Moon respects Yanni and in return Yanni respects you. It is called a circle. Just like the circle around the fire you just fucking Yanni danced around. AMEN.

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It’s not over yet silly. You have the Whole Yanni Catalog to choose from. It is up to the leader to decide the next Yanni track. You could continue with “Ultimate Yanni” or seriously switch it up. The only guidelines are:

1. You start with “CHASING SHADOWS.”
2. No “Live at the Acropolis.”
3. Make sure your car is running when you have the headlights on so you don’t kill your cars batteries.

In terms of dancing, just feel it. Many people do jumps over the fire, but it is not necessary. I prefer doing basic stick pulses combined with jumps over the fire. If you are going to attempt jumps over the fire, make sure you get a good feel for the fire before you attempt a jump. You are not going to get seriously burned unless you land in the fire, but there is potential for error and you don’t want to have to explain to your mom why you have that huge band-aid on your elbow. Other techniques you could attempt are staff twirling, poi spinning, mix-tribal, semi-herbal, circus contact dancing, PYROTEAZEING, chiptonic mole surfing, fire fingers, staff wicking, etc.

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Yanni Fire Dancing differs greatly from traditional Polynesian fire dancing. The most basic difference is you don’t need fire on the stick you are dancing with. You can if you want, but as long as you have a campfire burning; you are good to go. Advanced Yanni Fire Dancers do incorporate fire on their sticks, but again, it is not necessary.

Not much else. When you are done, make sure the fire is put out. Clean up anything else and respect the forest you traveled to. I hope to see a lot more Yanni Fire Dancers out there in the future. PM me if you need anymore tips.

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