Upcoming Shows
- Sep 16 2010
Oxidation Arts at Four Quartetrs
Thurs Sept 16-Sun 19, 2010 Organized by Four Quarters and The Ohio Burn Unit The Art of Fire Performance Developing. Stay Tuned
- Jul 02 2010
Gratefulfest at nlqp
July 2nd-5th Gratefulfest 3 more unforgettable nights with Dark Star Orchestra! All of your friends & family. Lots of great special guests. 11th annual. With special performances by Keller Williams! Plus fireworks, burning man, clowns, great times. By now you all know what to expect
- Jun 30 2010
Drum and Splash at Four Quarters
Drum and Splash - Registration Required Wed June 30 - Sun July 4, 2010 Thursday Night Community Drum Circle. Yoga of Drum and Chant I and II, Drum the Ecstatic Evolution Sogbety Diomande with Hamidou Kovogui Friday Night Performance. Ivory Coast Djembe, Spirit Mask and Stilt Dance. West African Dance and Group Play. Waking Dream Saturday Night Fire Dragon Procession. Childrens Programing, Mask Making, Dancing + Animated Puppets. The Ohio Burn Unit Flaming Pyrotechnics, Poi and Fire Arts Workshop Intensives Kenyatta Junjun's, ensemble play and the Magic of The Bell. Billy Bardo and his Basic Bohdran Madness for Beginers. Dr. Harry Pepper, PhD Shamanic Journey Drumming. Cindy and Kevin Ryan Middle Eastern Dumbek and Dance. Hoop Drum. Amara Middle Eastern Dance + Body Movement Alex Wedmedyk Care + Feeding of The Drum. Meet and Greet. Marlenah Barker Hoop Dance and Fire Arts Khalil Calavas Morning meditations and Yoga Jason Walker Afro-Caribbean Rhythms Sweat Lodge with Buffalo Heart Saturday Evening: ! FIREWORKS ! The Fire Dragon Procession Our Special Eco-Spiritual Discussions Include: TheAge of Limits with Orren Whiddon Eco-Spiritual Sustainable Community The Community of Service Members Neighborhood Ice Cream Social Down by the cool River, A backyard Block Party for our Members and guests. Come on by! Children's Arts + Crafts In The North Crook Paint the Earth Green Make a Maraca Masks, Paints + Beads! Duck Races in the River! The Sound Garden. Fire Spinning Conclave Learn and Practice Fire Art from the experts for the Masked Procession Got Fire?
- Jun 17 2010
Wicker Man at Four Quarters
The Wicker Man Thur June 17 - Sun June 20, 2010 Believe it or not, it all started with Julius Caesar. He got himself all caught up in a war of choice with the Celts, and wasn't doing all that well with it. Folks back home were asking hard questions about costs and casualties, and the Celtic insurgency was growing stronger. What he needed was some hair raising propaganda about threats to the homeland and all the values that Romans held dear. And more cash. And more troops. The Celts had a festival in which they constructed a giant man-like effigy, filled with offerings and then set alight. The Man represented variously "Bel" (from which we get Beltaine, the still celebrated Rites of Spring) or perhaps "The Green Man," the archetype of all things wild and growing within nature. All harmless enough and good fun if you were a Celt. A pleasant peasants' party, if you will. But Julius, being a clever guy, saw an opportunity. He spread the word that those dastardly Celts were hiding something horrible behind their pleasant little party. Human Sacrifice! Egads! Call the Legions. To Arms, To Arms! The media of the times ran with the story and before you can say "Weapons of Mass Delusion" the rest was history. So it goes. Which brings us to today. Political parallels aside, we be burnin' The Wicker Man. Why? Because it's fun. Why else. Because since Roman times The Wicker Man, that is The Green Man; has represented the personification of the wiggly, wild and rambunctious energies of the Earth, and its custodians. That would be us. Emphasis on wiggly, wild and rambunctious. It's what Wicker Man is all about. Building the Wicker Man Our design intent is as follows: * Firstly, to build a simply stupendous effigy, visually stunning, technically challenging; and burn it to the ground. To do so in a way that is sustainable, reusable and as earth friendly as possible. * The effigy should incorporate an interior "Temple" within itself, a place of space for contemplation of the energies of The Burn. And of Spirit. * The effigy should incorporate an elevated deck, for observation and contemplation of "self" and "other." And to provide a platform for burnable offerings. * The effigy should be animated. * The effigy should incorporate rather technical pyrotechnics. The equipment developed should be reusable, evolutionary and expandable. * The effigy should be designed in such a way that primary structural construction takes place prior to and during the setup weekend. And final finishing and decoration takes place during the Burn weekend, as a participatory art project * Materials should be natural, local and from the local woodlands where ever possible. Plastic and chemical coatings are to be avoided. * The Wicker Man must burn down into its own footprint. And... We need help. Are you a thing builder or would like to be? Handy with tools or learning? Got an edge on decoration and finishing? Techno-nerd with a desire to design propane control systems, electrical, pyrotechnical and ignition? Sound and light? A lot of skills and a lot of work will go into the Man. Just go to the discussion forum to join in. During the Setup Days, June 14-16,we plan on our final assembly and erection of The Man. Then, the Burn. Decoration and polish Thursday and Friday. Burn him to the ground Saturday night. Got an idea? Share it! Go to Design and Construction for more.
- Jun 11 2010
Floyd/Zeppelin Classic Fest at nlqp
June 11th-13th Floyd/Zeppelin Classic Fest Live Pink Floyd once again with favorites- Several Species! Led Zeppelin with our friends from NYC- Kashmir! Back by demand- incredible Beatles performances by Brittbeat! Best Rush tribute in the world, Limelight returns for year #5 Lazer show Fri. & Sat
Random Media
Recent News
On September 19th of 2009, the members of the Ohio Burn Unit, Ted Batchelor, and a tight group of others set a new Guinness Book World Record for the most people doing a full body burn at the same time. The new record stands at 17 people, a feat which took over 40 people to bring to fruition.
We were featured on Fox News National, as well as our own local Fox 8, and several other news outlets.
As we get together footage and other media, we'll post more in our Media page.
For those interested in the latest propane and propane accessories, there is a new company called Infernoptix that has developed a 12x7 "pixel" fire screen. That's 84 small explosions of fire that can be controlled with a computer to make anything from small messages (written in fire, of course) to basic animations along the lines of the original Atari.
Of course the shear coolness of this means we'll have to be experimenting with propane in the future. Why? Well, as the site states, "If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand."
Kim Hagen of Boombox fame is back at home after her unfortunate accident last year! We've had the pleasure of knowing Kim from Nelson's Ledges for a while now, and we're all excited to hear about her recovery. We hope to see you out and about this year Kim!
Another year of performance is coming to a close, and several of our members were in Cincinnati this weekend for one last spin with our friends from Incendium Arts. Thanks to everyone who came out, and we look forward to next year!
Update: Some of the pictures captured at this gathering are now on the media page.
This weekend's Cincinnati fire performer meet was a blast! In spite of the cold weather, there was a very good turnout of almost thirty people. One of our fellow Ohio fire troupes, Incendium, hosted the event with attendees from Michigan, Indiana, and New York, and of course, the Ohio Burn Unit as well. A big thanks to the out of staters who brought a good deal of new talent to the gathering. It was nice being able to exchange ideas and moves, as well as see some different styles of spinning.
This is only the first meet in the area. There are a number of other folks who have e-mailed me looking to be part of such a meet. We are scouting possible locations for a large scale fire artist weekend sometime this summer. So stay tuned for any announcements about that.
To those that actually got footage of the event, we look forward to seeing the results. Anyone looking to post their pictures / movies up here, please e-mail me to set something up. We'll be posting what pictures we have available soon.
Well here it is, the Ohio Burn Unit webpage version 2.0. After weeks of tweaking it's in a workable state. This is the news page, where we will make announcements and such. Anyone looking for information on our troupe can visit the about page. We will update as we go along with more information, specifically data for potential customers. A small amount of personal information on our performers can be found in the bios page. It's still under construction, as we need to get together some semi-decent photos of everyone and a blurb about themselves. There are only a few of our performers listed there right now, but that will change as we get pictures and information from everyone.
The most exciting new feature of our site design is the media section. We now have a place to put all of our current photos and movies, as well as any upcoming files. It'll be nice and organized by date so finding a photo of a specific performance should be a snap. I'll throw in a shoutout to two people here who have been instrumental to this effort. First, a big thank you to Evan, the owner and proprietor of Nelson's Ledges Quarry Park, who has always provided us with an excellent festival ground and concert venue to showcase our abilities. And also a huge thanks to "Pops" who contributed a lot of our best high-res shots for the gallery and other parts of this page. Thanks guys! Anyone else with photos from events we've been at are free to e-mail us if you'd like to contribute to our gallery!
Finally, anyone looking to shoot us some e-mail ar welcome to try out the contact page. The web page has been a long time coming, and there have been many hands involved in it's development, so a huge thanks to Knagi for forking out the money for the domain and Chad for initial design and forum setup. As for myself, I hope everyone likes the new design and look forward to seeing everyone at our next performance!