Fire Dance With Me

The same guy at the office who did the fire eating class went to Burning Man a few months back. Burning Man is an annual new age art festival in the middle of the desert. Thirty five thousand people show up and camp, with no supplies provided. The festival features every crazy kind of art display you can imagine, with much of it centering on the general fire theme. He brought back pictures. The thing that was most interesting to me was the video game Dance, Dance, Immolation. It is a takeoff on Dance, Dance, Revolution (more fondly known as DDR by those in the know, like Garrett). DDR is that video game where you follow dance steps on a special mat or platform as a song plays on a screen in front of you. You rack up points for hitting them correctly, and you lose points when you miss the beat or the proper step. The variation here is that the dancer dons a full protective suit including forced air breathing apparatus, and when he or she misses a beat, a flame thrower blasts a propane torch. This was funny enough, but apparently when they asked for volunteers, my colleague at the office nearly got knocked over as people jockeyed for a chance to do it!