Let Nightfire bring enchantment to your event or gathering!

Nightfire is a performance group that combines dance with poetry, music, and improvisational ritual.

Punctuated Improvisation
Nightfire’s works are structured improvisations that blend influences from modern dance, Middle Eastern, African and Asian forms, with elements of ballet and jazz dance accompanied by music and the spoken word. We incorporate poetry from our own members and other poets from Ann Arbor and Detroit.

Shapeshifting
Nightfire’s work draws on visions of shapeshifting, evoking interpretive rituals circled around prehistoric fires, that allow movement to blend the waking life with the world of dreams. In our collective past, our ancestors saw all of nature as alive, conscious, connected, and interrelated. From this wondrous ocean of life and creativity, all members of the tribe could share in the experience and expression of any being or phenomenon of Nature.
Nightfire works with the instruments of dance and words, live and recorded music, costumes, feathers, totems, masks and the mysteries of light and sound to awaken this timeless spirit. Nightfire’s performances are interactive, inviting the audience to approach the circle of firelight with their own stories, dance, and improvisations. Many performances conclude with an invitation to the audience to join in a group dance.
Music, art, dance, and life exist to be combined. If you can move, you can dance.
Reclaim your power to create, perceive, and heal!

Nightfire: Programs and Performances
Stage performances vary in length from 10 to 90 minutes. Most are adaptable to venues from living room floors to full-size stages or outdoor settings. Nightfire’s growing repertoire of dance works includes thirty pieces. We can work with you to create signature pieces for any event.

Dance Jams and Parties
Nightfire’s roots go back more than thirteen years to productions of public dance. This alternative to dancing at bars was intended as an empowering experience that combined eclectic, danceable music and an open, non-judgmental atmosphere for expressive movement.
We can create magic dance parties for groups of all ages.

Art Galleries, Museums, and Receptions
Nightfire can create dances that respond to and interact with specific works of art or themes in exhibits. We can add a special touch to any reception, turning the usual tables of punch, cheese, and crackers into a feast of the mysterious.

Torn Veils
A series of exhibits of creative photographic modeling; dance theater in still photographs combined with live dance performances. Nightfire can collaborate with photographers and other artists.

Street Theater
Nightfire will create programs appropriate for humanitarian and ecological political events alone and/or in association with other groups.

Spiritual Gatherings, Dream Exploration, and Healing
Nightfire has created a program to present at classes and gatherings devoted to the exploration of dreams. The group can contribute dances as an aspect of the healing arts.
Nightfire is non-denominational and its ceremonial elements are improvisational. The group is available to perform and assist at spiritual gatherings that are likewise open to all and recognize a shared common essence.

“It is the spirit
of ancient gatherings
of fire, star and moonlight
that Nightfire brings
to poetry, image and dance; celebrating the inner fire
of the artist
and the origins
of poetry
on the stage
of our communal effort
to wrench meaning
out of the darker reaches
of the
human mind.”