Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
We inform. You decide.
Friday, March 29, 2024
NEWS  |  CAMPUS

UF student finds peace, community by juggling fire and props

<p>Sam Konchan, 21, UF botany junior spins a set of fire fans in the backyard area of Flow Space located on 117 NW 16th Ave. Spinning fire is only one form of the flow arts in which Konchan also finds a community offering lifelong friendships.</p>

Sam Konchan, 21, UF botany junior spins a set of fire fans in the backyard area of Flow Space located on 117 NW 16th Ave. Spinning fire is only one form of the flow arts in which Konchan also finds a community offering lifelong friendships.

When Sam Konchan’s neighbors called the police on him, he said he wasn’t committing arson.

He was just spinning a flaming hula hoop around his body.

Konchan, a 21-year-old UF botany junior, has been performing with fire and props for three years, but has been playing with props since his sister left her batons unattended when he was 12 years old.

In the summer of 2015, while he was at Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Tennessee, he was drawn to a girl’s LED hula-hoop performance.

As he watched her roll the illuminated hoop from her forearm across her chest, like basketball players with balls, Konchan was mesmerized.

After the festival, Konchan practiced tricks for hours each day. Three years later, he’s improved his techniques in flow arts.

He practices in the field by Oxford Terrace II Apartments, at Depot Park, as well as on the Plaza of the Americas. He usually does it at night — when it’s easier to see at West Side Park.

Konchan started his journey with a prop of tethered weights called “poi,” which is manipulated to look like spinning fire balls. He also uses hula hoops, which have three to four wicked prongs, and a dragon staff, or a metal rod with pinwheel-like ends that can be twirled in the air.

Practicing brings him peace, Konchan said.

“It’s this meditative state. It’s a flow state of mind,” he said. “You zone really hard on the present.”

His first professional performance was at the 2017 Imagine Music Festival in Atlanta. He walked around wearing multi-colored sequined leggings and fake pink scales painted on his body.

Konchan worked as an unpaid character actor dressed as a merman and performed with LED props.

Enjoy what you're reading? Get content from The Alligator delivered to your inbox

“It was great to be a part of something I believed in,” he said. “I love the vibe of people being themselves and opening themselves up.”

He plans to return to the festival in 2019 as the leader of a group of roaming character actors. In 2020, he hopes to be on stage as a fire performer.

Konchan said his family and friends have been supportive of his passion. He has received some negative jeers from strangers, who called him a f--, but he said he found the comments immature. He knows the flow arts community, which spreads across the globe, is accepting. A Facebook group he’s in, Infinite Circles, currently has about 30,000 members, he said.

Another local performer, AJ Henry, 26, has been practicing flow arts for four years. He and Konchan met three years ago in a Gainesville group of fire performers called Ambiance. The two are also part of a group called Phoenix Fire & Performance Art that includes 10 people from Gainesville and Jacksonville.

Henry learned to breathe and eat fire at Flashepoint, a festival for artists and jugglers, last October in Stuart, Virginia. He said he became addicted to practicing.

There are numerous safety precautions when performing, he said. One misstep could lead to hospitalization, so he always has someone present with a fire blanket in case anything goes wrong.

For Henry, the community offers lifelong friendships.

“When I go to a festival or a show in a different city, I know that I will either know someone there, or I will be able to make new friends,” he said.

In the future, Konchan sees himself possibly working for The Walt Disney Co. as a performer. He said he wants to keep exploring the practice because he thinks it brings people together.

“With cellphones and technology now, people have a hard time just sitting down with their eyes closed and not fidgeting,” he said. “But having something active and moving in calm states, it gives you time to zone in and be really peaceful.”

Sam Konchan, 21, UF botany junior spins a set of fire fans in the backyard area of Flow Space located on 117 NW 16th Ave. Spinning fire is only one form of the flow arts in which Konchan also finds a community offering lifelong friendships.

Support your local paper
Donate Today
The Independent Florida Alligator has been independent of the university since 1971, your donation today could help #SaveStudentNewsrooms. Please consider giving today.

Powered by SNworks Solutions by The State News
All Content © 2024 The Independent Florida Alligator and Campus Communications, Inc.