Fire & Strings

FIRE & STRINGS is a collaborative project between fire artist/touring musician S. J. Tucker and fire artist/acrobat Kevin K Wiley, which dazzles audiences through a fusing of fire play and improvisational music. Tucker accompanies Wiley's fire play or dances with fire along with Wiley, often with local drum circle support, or as the highly-flammable icing on the cake of multi-band concerts and festivals. The duo also performs indoors with LED-props when fire is not an option. Fire & Strings has performed to delighted crowds since its ignition, undertaking shows in Memphis, Austin, Atlanta, Jacksonville FL, New Orleans, St. Louis, Kansas City, Denver, Boston, Seattle, and Colorado Springs, as well as many outdoor festivals across the country--Burning Man being the biggest and the best of these.

Tucker and Wiley make for a scintillating combination no matter who plays what role in each performance, but they are at their hottest spinning fire poi or staff in tandem, using their obvious chemistry and trust to create a highly entertaining and passionate dance. Fire & Strings also works with their far-flung guest troupe members in the United States and Canada, creating larger choreographed shows. At this summer's Faerieworlds Festival in Oregon, Fire & Strings introduced a new show called "Firebird's Child", based upon the fairy tales of Catherynne M. Valente and focusing on paired choreography, on and off stilts. Fully-insured, sensible and safe pyrophiliacs, Fire & Strings serve the muses and honor with their talents the truest passions in the universe: song and flame.

SPOTLIGHT: KEVIN K WILEY Professional fire artist, dancer, and magician Kevin K Wiley has been playing with fire for just under a decade, but he took it to whole new heights while working with Lumina Fire Theatre in Denver, CO. Since Fire & Strings' explosively popular genesis in 2004, K has been happily on the road across the United States, sharing his light and humor. Between performances, K offers classes by appointment in basic, intermediate, or advanced poi spinning technique, tricks, transitions, and dance, introductory fire spinning, and fire safety. This dancing rabbit artfully manipulates fire wands and fire breathing, fire poi, fire staff, double staff, meteor, fire daggers, and just about anything else he can get his hands on, often while stilt walking or tumbling, and all with a grace which is truly his own.

SPOTLIGHT: S. J. TUCKER Before the summer of 2004, S. J. would never have thought herself a candidate for the fire arts, since her head remains, to this day, 'a ball magnet.' Who knew that while on her first concert tour, she would find a soul mate, teacher, and traveling partner in Kevin K Wiley! Tucker takes joy in expressing herself through fire, as well as music, whenever Fire & Strings takes the stage. To this date, she has learned to speak the language of fire poi, fire staff, double staff, fire daggers, and fire hoop without any permanent damage. Many progressive and hard-edged variations on her dazzling original songs occur at Fire & Strings performances, as Tucker manipulates acoustic guitar, electric bass, and hand percussion off-the-cuff, to honor the force of unpredictability present in music and in fire. S. J. began composing new music of a more electronic bent specifically for Fire & Strings in early 2006, and she continues to craft this new dimension of the duo's overall appeal.