Every year, Ringmaster Parker Galore, and a collective of fire spinners and performance artists, shut down Marshall Street in Jackson Ward for what may be the biggest First Friday event of the year. This year’s circus of fire spinners and burlesque performers kick off the month-long Carnival of Five Fires this weekend in a celebration of the weird and taboo.
Every year, Ringmaster Parker Galore, and a collective of fire spinners and performance artists, shut down Marshall Street in Jackson Ward for what may be the biggest First Friday event of the year. This year’s circus of fire spinners and burlesque performers kick off the month-long Carnival of Five Fires this weekend in a celebration of the weird and taboo.
The Carnival of Five Fires, now in it’s 10th year, showcases the diverse circles of creativity that fall under the categories of circus art, fire performance, belly dancing and burlesque. This year’s First Friday kick off of the Carnival happens Oct. 7, which happens to be the 167th anniversary of Edgar Allen Poe’s death.
“That’s something we’re trying to pay homage to,” Galore said. “Two of the actual events later in the month are the “Haunting of Poe,” which is a burlesque variety show that local burlesque producer Deanna Danger and Baltimore’s Gilded Lily Burlesque launched last year, but this year they’re putting a new twist on it. It’s kind of an alternate dimension of Edgar Allen Poe.”
The celebration to honor Poe’s death starts with a showing of two short silent Poe films, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Fall of the House of Usher,” accompanied by live scoring from local musician Dave Watkins as part of the “Silent Music Revival” to begin the evening.
The First Friday event at Gallery5 will kick off the larger collection of events happening throughout the month of October. The central part of the Carnival that hundreds of people come from up and down the East Coast to see is the Pyro Circus by the Party Liberation Front, a collective of fire and circus art performers, musicians, and other artists, which Galore describes as Burning Man related on the local level.
“It has a massive appeal not only to Richmond but to the region and across the East Coast,” Galore said.
The Party Liberation Front’s Pyro Circus includes DJ performances and chances for visitors to show off their fire spinning chops in a live street performance. PLF has tried to round up the talent from around the region to show off this interesting and uncommon art form.
This particular event took three months of planning, between the coordination of the fire spinner performances and the larger process of collecting different organizations to get the entire month of events lined up.
Galore’s personal interest in fire spinning began 11 years ago, when he recruited a group of five fire spinners for the Gallery5 grand opening event.
“I really appreciate it and enjoy it and it’s such a beautiful art form that has so many different ways of output,” he said. “I have friends that are some of the best fire performers on the East Coast.” With the help of these performers, a community started building around Gallery5 which evolved into the Party Liberation Front, and the group has been growing ever since. “The last time I had seen fire performers before we started Gallery5 was Burning Man, so I was really excited to stumble upon fire performance in Richmond.”
Since then, the collective of fire and circus art performers has grown to be one of the most anticipated performances of any month’s First Friday. In addition to the show, Gallery5 will be displaying an art show of 20 visual artists upstairs, with Tarot readers and live body painting.
“People should expect a little spooky mixed with sexy mixed with a little bit of danger,” Galore said. “And a lot of creative, quirky variety.”
The month-long Carnival will come to an end on Oct. 31, with the All Saints Theater Company’s 11th Annual Halloween Parade, which starts in Monroe Park and ends in Oregon Hill. The yearly parade, organized by Lily Lamberta and crew, includes a brigade of costumed Richmonders, flags and giant puppets, which the parade attendees can learn to make through puppet workshops being held every Tuesday and Thursday starting Oct. 6 at the Wizard Shoppe.
Click here for a full rundown on the month-long festivities for Carnival of 5 Fires.
