From the moment I arrived at camp all 250 participants went way out of their way to make everyone feel welcome and cared about. From the first 5 hugs as I entered the welcoming tent onwards, welcoming hugs with sincere greetings from friendly strangers was the norm. And after a few hours any traces of New York aloofness that I was inadvertently carrying with me had worn off. I have to wonder if we can go around being incredibly kind to everyone all the time? And beyond displays of affection, simply mentioning that you were trying to do anything from feats of engineering, to poi movements, smoke bubbles yielded without fail incredibly helpful personal tutorials on said topic.

The regiment which included 5 classes in your choice of seven performance disciplines, 3 meals, a couple hours of free mingling time, and 5 hours of open night performances, was rather intensive. And by the third day of attempting to spin implements in circles around and through my other appendages as if they didnt exist I had to take things down a notch and remember that all of this stuff takes just as much practice as willpower and concentration.

Having been practicing poi spinning for about a year on my own in my spare time I realized that I was still a novice. And although I could learn a lot that will come to good use from intermediate classes, I could also improve a lot by focussing on the the basics of the beginning classes.

I also learned how beautiful it can be to play with fire. To focus on the trajectory of a spinning flame, and hear the sounds of it like fighters whooshing by your ears, and see your movements and intensions reflected in the primal element of fire is rather addictive.

I have never been at an event where I had the time to really think and speak with and learn about so many interesting people. Strangers who after a few minutes you felt you could really count on them to pay attention and look after for you if you suddenly caught fire. A place where the general assumption was that anyone there is probably really cool or really special and totally worth meeting.

On the way home I had a few new thoughts and epiphanies:

• One was that as spectacular as fire performance is, spectators tend to watch it as they would a circus. Basically daring the performers to do more and more and more all the time. Like okay buddy thats pretty cool but show me something I haven't seen. I would like to think of fire as an element in a performance, rather than the performance itself. Just a couple days before the retreat I saw Valmonte Sprout dancing the most minimal movements in a dark room, for 7 minutes without any musical accompaniment, and yet the assembled crowd was completely rapt by her attention and thereness. I feel that if people are expecting to be impressed by your performance it restricts them in some ways from being touched by your performance. When a performance is really minimal and unfolding very slowly, my mind tends to go a lot deepen and read a lot more into every movement and what it could mean. This is one reason I find butoh to be such a powerful performance art. My focus tends to stay with the performer as long as their focus stays with the performance. One of the performers said that it was very powerful to hide the true nature of your performance tools. Whether its disguising your umbrella as a cane, or your poi as a staff, or your fans as a candle, it is a powerful device to use. But when used in fire performance it tends to last for only a moment. I feel that to do really trancendental dance with fire, one should really focus and bring people into the dance. Not dance as spectacle, but dance as come closer and feel what I am trying to communicate through movement. If a performer can suceed in bringing an audience emotionally close and then add the element of fire without loosing that emotional closeness, then the fire begins the closeness of the fire will represent more than a spectacular lighting effect, and may open the door to really inspirational performance encounters.
• Another was that as a fulltime parent it was really interesting to see how well I could focus and just learn when I take a break and don't have to worry about my kids falling off a cliff in the background for a couple days. I highly recommend all parents take some time to not be a parent every now and again.