We hope you all made the most of festival season, because Autumn has fallen, and the cold weather is coming. On the upside it gets darker faster, which is perfect for the fire and glow branch of our family! This month our intrepid reporter, Larry Wong, got an interview with Oliver Macro, talking about about staying safe while playing with fire.
Photo courtesy of Amandala Photography
INTERVIEW WITH OLIVER MACRO ON FIRE SAFETY
For the readers who haven't met you before, tell us a bit about yourself! What are your experiences with fire spinning and performance?
Greetings, all! I was first introduced to the world of fire play in 2007, attending the Tuesday night fire gatherings in Auckland. Through that community I was slowly introduced to festivals such as Kiwiburn, Heat, Circulation, and Under The Spinfluence, where I developed friendships with community members nationwide that enabled me to travel and play with fire folk all over New Zealand.
Interestingly it's been through working as a sound technician and DJ that I've become somewhat prolific in the circus community. I don't consider myself a particularly skilled object manipulator, and perform rarely, however I enjoy it as a form of play and am usually happy to take on organisational roles on the periphery. As a result I'm usually the one herding performers about, rather than performing myself.
I hear you're initiating a new national-level organisation to unite the regional fire communities, could you tell us a bit about that?
At the moment I'm putting out some tendrils and seeing what interest and potential there is for such an organisation. As the art and pastime has grown in popularity it's become all the more apparent to me that some such organisation is becoming necessary, especially having noted some concerns regarding sensible conduct and fire safety arising recently. ANZCA's recent coming into existence has been somewhat of a motivator also, I should note.
