Stopped by the Crucible’s Fire Art Festival under the maze in Oakland. These are three stilt walkers passing in front of the back of a big fire dragon. The Crucible is a workshop where you can take classes on pouring glass to beadwork. This festival seemed, from behind the fences, to center mostly on the fire work- and yes, it was really Burning Man-esque, though many porta potties abounded.

I arrived five minutes after they sold out, so my friend and I toured the entire block from behind the fence. In the words of my friend “close as I want to be to some of these flames.” Some video and more photos after the jump.

I was enticed by the idea that they were going to do a production of the Odyssey with fire accompaniment. From behind the gates we did see some of the cast introduced, Odysseus I believe was suspended by a crane, in a fiery kind of birdcage. The crane got a lot of use last night.

In this photo I tried to capture just how big some of the gusts of gas & flame were and how they lit up the block.

There was a Dance, Dance, Revolution kind of game where two people in fire retardant suits danced on pads, and when they screwed up a big gust of flame hit them. (also, see Video below)

To me, and I know this is a minority opinion, fire is essentially so cool, do you have to dress it up?

More of Dance, Dance Revolution game:

A cute kid on the street playing with glow sticks:

A lot more photos on Flickr with the tag: Fire Arts Festival.