Festival Chaos

While I am still on tour for a few more weeks (currently I am at Bristol Renaissance Faire in Kenosha WI), my involvement with Pagan and magical festivals is done for the 2012 summer season. I left Brushwood Folklore Center, home of Sirius Rising and Summerfest, yesterday, after an amazing summer of festivals.

I captured some pretty amazing whirling chaos at fests this year: hooping, fire spinning and acrobatics. Here are a few highlights of the whirling motion I was able to photograph.

First, some amazing hooping on the fields of Brushwood:

(Note: the pic above might not be the actual colors of the lovely hooper or of the Brushwood forests).

This year there was an area where fire spinners could practice each night, and on the final Friday of the two festival weekends, they held a pretty amazing show. I had the honor of photographing the fire spinners over several nights, and was able to photograph their entire special performance. First a few shots of the girl hooping above, and her boyfriend, spinning in preparation for the main fire show.

Now my photos of the show itself, which featured a dozen performers...

Brushwood Folklore Center took a huge risk allowing these performers to take a stage and gather an audience (insurance issues and all), and the performers (and myself) all gushed with appreciation for allowing this show to go on. It was pretty amazing. Brushwood really boasts a rather awesome line-up of fire performers.

I will write a scathingly brilliant blog very soon about the ren faire. Til then, from the fiery landscape of Brushwood, this is Kenny Klein explaining it all.