THE CITY, THE NIGHT, PAINTING WITH FIRE: BUSKERFEST 2014

A young man does something breath taking on a pole

A woman does something unexpected inside a giant wheel

Another woman dances in the night, lithe and fluid, surrounded by fire, the flames painting the darkness in gold and red

It could all be magic and perhaps it is. This past weekend, Buskerfest returned to the streets of Toronto. For several years they held this event around St Lawrence Market but for the past couple of years it has been on and around the downtown Yonge St. strip. We went down in the evening. We like fire shows and fire shows are often best appreciated in the dark

The first fire show we saw still had light. They were called Flame Oz. Because they had flames. And they are from Australia.

They were pretty good. They were one of the larger groups that we saw so they were able to put a lot of variety in their show. Even so, they had a couple tricks that were popular with other acts as well. We declared this the summer of the floating glass balls. Not only did we seem them from two different acts at Buskerfest, we also saw them use at the CNE about which I will blog later

Another popular act was the burning hula hoop. I can only speculate how this came about. One day in Hawaii a girl was enjoying her hula hoop and got a bit too close to the volcano? A warning for us all. But at Buskerfest, it was an entertaining, sometime amusing, sometimes beautiful endeavor.

The latter pic is one part of the two part team Canadian busker team called Kamikaze Fireflies. What the woman is doing, in that pic, is twirling five burning hoops, apparently a world record. They were one of my favorite acts of the night. They were not strictly a fire act; they did whips, balancing and the Russian wheel. The girl happily pointed out that the Russian wheel is an apparatus generally considered too difficult for a woman to use. Yeh, hear her roar, bitch

Her male partner did his own feat of derring do, building and then balancing upon a stack of five wooden chairs. Whereas many street performers sometimes underplay the danger of their acts, the Kamikaze, name aside, let us know just how difficult their stunts were and gosh, they just may not succeed ... but of course they always did

They used a lot a comedy in their act, varying from vaudeville to burlesque. As you will see in the video, a lot of their patter was tongue in cheek risque. And speeking of cheeks, they had an interesting variation on the guy using a whip to break something being held by a girl

Flame Oz had a kind of Vegas feel about them and Kamikaze Firefly were vaudeville. The other fire act that we saw was more goth and drama. Nomad Cirquel is a duo that uses some of the same props as the other acts: The gloating globe, flaming hoops etc. But their act is enfused with music and a high, if not sometimes misplaced, sense of drama

The guy was adept with weapons, using a whip, also used by Flame Oz and the Fireflies, as well as an asian pike. The girl had her flaming hoop and was very good with it, she brought an acrobatic grace to the device that some of the other performers did not. Yes, she is a flame dancer who is truly hot.What I found truly striking about this act was their pas de deux, a duet with and without flaming batons that exhibited a high degree of athletic ability and a sensual sense of form and body

The night was not all fire shows however. Walking by an alley we heard a sinuous enticing sound and found Dr Draw, a Jean Luc Ponty-style violinist of whom we are quite fond

There was also Reuben DotDotDot the aforementioned young man who did something spectacular with his pole .. settle down, he's not that kind of busker

Buskerfest is a huge event, spanning several days and a lot of downtown acerage. It's impossible to see everything but that in a sense is a good thing. Coz as they say in show biz, always leave em wanting more.
Toronto Buskerfest 2014 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.