The Best place to learn about Fans is Home of Fans which is run by the venerable REM. A lot of it is in Russian, but the content is without equal.
Fire fans are so-named for their geometric resemblance to traditional fans. These props are favored by performers with dance backgrounds because they can easily be treated as natural extensions of the performer's hands. A growing international community, centered in the United States and in Russia is developing a set of technical movements for fans.
Fans allow ...
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The Best place to learn about Fans is Home of Fans which is run by the venerable REM. A lot of it is in Russian, but the content is without equal.
Fire fans are so-named for their geometric resemblance to traditional fans. These props are favored by performers with dance backgrounds because they can easily be treated as natural extensions of the performer's hands. A growing international community, centered in the United States and in Russia is developing a set of technical movements for fans.
Fans allow the performer a large degree of control to change directions and speeds, to combine technical skill and dance, and to utilize previously learned dance arts and movement skills.
Nearly all fire fans share several crucial design elements, a grip, a set of spokes/internal structure, and wicking. Several varieties of practice fans forgo the wicks in favor of added durability and weight. Each of these elements is deployed in different ways by different manufacturers
Grip:
Dozens of grip styles are available, but these fall into several key categories. Russian grips are large steel rings, through which a performer can pass his or her entire wrist (3 - 5" diameter). American grips use smaller rings (1 - 3" diameter), and use 1-4 rings usually arranged along the fan's axis of symmetry. In 2014, Forged Creations began investigating 'pistol grips' with multiple rings of unequal size.
Spokes:
Most fans available today are not folding fans, although Fire Mecca does sell one design which folds. For most dance performance and for all technical work, a rigid, durable design is desirable. Most fans are designed as a set of welded steel rods, although some are cut from single sheets of aluminum or steel. The silhouette, internal structure and overall size of a pair of fans hugely impact the prop's feel to the performer, with larger, more imagery conscious designs such as Home of Poi's Lotus favored by dance performers. Technical performers divide along national borders, with Russian performers preferring large, heavy fans with 5-7 spokes and american performers preferring smaller, lighter fans with 3-5 spokes. This dichotomy is likely due to the choices of the pioneers of fan technique in these two countries.
Of particular importance in fan design is a distance called the fan's 'radius,' the distance from the grip's outermost point to the center of mass of the fan. This distance is important because it will directly affect how quickly the fan accelerates without energy being added by the performer. An average radius for American fans is about 5".
Nearly all fan designs are symmetrical across a central axis, but several prominent performers such as Memory have commissioned asymmetrical fans. In 2011, Science of Om manufacturer Brian Hirschberger invented a prop called 'flow fins' which functions much like an asymmetrical fan using a Russian grip.
Wick:
Most common fan designs use discreet wicks set at regular intervals along the outer edge of the fan away from the grip. These wicks are typically rolled tape wick (.5 - 2"), although pillow-shaped wicks (Trick Concepts) and small cathedral wicks (Burning Passion) have been explored. Fans with discreet wicks have 3 (Burning Passion), 4 (Trick Concepts), 5 (Most American Manufacturers) or 7 (Most Russian Manufacturers).
Only a few fan designs utilize continuous wick, affixed along the entire length of the fan, typically due to the difficulty of fueling such a prop.
Practice Fans:
Few varieties of practice fans are available, although laser-cut plastics provide the most promising avenue.
Glow Fans:
Most currently available glow fans lack durability and are prohibitively expensive for hobbyists.
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