“I have two wands – one that’s lit, one that isn’t,” said Caridad Rivera. “I put the lit one in my mouth and instead of completely smothering the flame and cutting the oxygen off, I trap the fumes with my mouth and then exhale the flame to light the second torch with my mouth. It’s a little trick called ‘dragon’s fire.’ ”
Caridad Rivera was discussing her career as a fire-spinner – a performer who twirls lit batons, swallows torches, and does tricks with flame. That would be in addition to her activities as a professional belly dancer, a musician, a body painter, an artist…
She keeps herself busy.
Local residents can check out Rivera’s talents at Le Chateau Restaurant, 67 Street and Park Avenue in West New York, where Rivera performs every other Thursday.
“I do three sets,” she said. “It’s a high-energy performance. Basically it’s belly dancing and fire, fused with North African rhythms and flamenco. With a lot of mask play and audience participation. I like to provoke different sensations.”
Rivera makes her own masks and many of her costumes. And how does the audience participate in her act?
“Either I pull you out to dance and/or I dance around you,” she explained. “Also sometimes I bring instruments like shakers and maracas and hand them out so people can participate on a musical level. As a live performer you don’t want to just be in your own world. You want to bring in the audience.”
Rivera enjoys working at the restaurant, calling it comfortable and homey. “It’s a free cover charge and they have really nice drinks and the food is great,” she said.
She also dances at Tagine, a hookah lounge and restaurant in Manhattan that hosts Moroccan Gnawa bands and entertainment.
‘Creation’
“I was just hanging out with people who used to spin fire. One thing led to the next. You hang out with your friends and you kind of practice and the next thing you know it becomes part of what you do.”
Except most people probably don’t hang out with fire spinners.
“I am a very curious person,” said the 31-year-old North Bergen resident. “I like to experience new things. I love to travel and I love being part of the human experience. I met a lot of my fire spinning friends at little underground gatherings, little psychedelic parties in the woods. I wouldn’t call them raves because they’re more mature.”
She continued learning by attending monthly gatherings of fire spinners in Manhattan where attendees exchange skills and knowledge.
Rivera double-majored in English theater and fine arts at New Jersey City University. Intending to be an actor but always interested in painting, she became involved in performance art, booking her own shows at which she body painted other performers and danced in a conceptual piece of her own devising called “Creation.”
“Basically it’s belly dancing and fire, fused with North African rhythms and flamenco. With a lot of mask play and audience participation.” – Caridad Rivera
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In case you’re wondering, most of the performances are PG rated. “We’re not like totally buck naked; we’re wearing very fitted clothing,” she explained. “We get a little racy, we can provoke the audience, but obviously it depends on who’s watching and the event, the venue. Sometimes in Brooklyn we don’t have to deal with any restrictions.”
Ex Astra
Rivera’s family emigrated from Cuba to Spain and then to Los Angeles, where she was born. Her background includes a stint studying in France, then taking off on a hitchhiking trip across Europe, eventually landing in Morocco, where the music and culture obviously resonated with her.
Having taken piano lessons as a child, she currently plays synthesizer and flute for the band Ex Astra (“It means ‘from the stars’ in Latin”) creating long, trancelike, neo-psychedelic pieces heavily inspired by African rhythms.
“We use ethereal, haunting voices,” she said. “And we are a visual band. We have belly dancing and theatrical elements. We dance with veils and we have a visual artist, a VJ projecting images. It’s a whole experience.”
In addition to singing and playing instruments, Rivera is one of the dancers and engages in fireplay during the band’s performances. Videos are available on YouTube and the band has a new album available for purchase at http://exastra.bandcamp.com/album/ex-astra.
Living the arts
Having lived for a while in Brooklyn, where she found energy and inspiration nonstop, Rivera says this side of the Hudson is not as creatively vibrant. But that opens up opportunities as well.
“The art scene here needs to expand a little bit out of the comfort zone,” she said. “I don’t see too many other body painted individuals that live in this area. People may not be exposed to that kind of art too often but if they receive it well or I provoke something different it makes me feel good. I’ll do conceptual, wear a mask, burn sage, different things.”
“People may find it bizarre but I don’t care. I’m trying to bring something new into the mix,” she said.
In addition to her belly dancing and fire spinning gigs, band performances, and body painting, Rivera teaches music, dance, and art, serving as a one-woman renaissance to inject her sense of pan-cultural surrealism and ritual transformation into the local scene.
And she’s just getting started. “I’ve been to burns, to festivals,” she said, “and I feel like a baby compared to other people I know who spin fire.”
Art Schwartz may be reached at arts@hudsonreporter.com.