Showing posts with label fire jumping. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fire jumping. Show all posts

Saturday, March 18, 2023

Fire, jump with me

Photos by Stacie Joy

Thursday evening saw the return of a fire-jumping event in an East Village community garden, the first since 2019

This year's edition, produced by More Gardens, took place at El Jardin del Paraiso on Fifth Street between Avenue C and Avenue D.

Here's some background:
More Gardens' Chaharshanbeh Suri NYC is a festival rooted in community, sharing, equity, and reverence for the earth through ritual fire jumping, art, music, food, and culture that began in the lands of West and Central Asia.

This fire celebration nourishes our spirits, strengthens our connection to each other, and affirms our belonging by embracing our diverse nationalities, languages, faiths, class, genders, races, and sexual identities. We make gathering joyful through art, music, food, culture, and intergenerational sharing. We hold each other to tend the flames of love, justice, solidarity, and goodness across the planet and right here in the community green spaces of NYC.
The fire team included Joules Magus ... with representatives from the FDNY present for safety. 

An estimated 200 people took part in the jumping ceremony. EVG contributor Stacie Joy was on hand for part of the festivities ...

Wednesday, March 20, 2019

At the 10th Annual Zoroastrian Fire Jumping event at La Plaza Cultural



A lot of people turned out last night to take part in the 10th Annual Zoroastrian Fire Jumping Event at La Plaza Cultural on Ninth Street at Avenue C.

As the invite noted: "Jumping over fire is a symbolic gesture to start a fresh new year. This tradition is celebrated for ringing in the Persian New Year and has been celebrated since at least 1700 BCE of the early Zoroastrian era."



The festive evening, choreographed again by Simin Farkhondeh, a community activist and professor at the School of Visual Arts, included music by the Rude Mechanical Orchestra and jumping courtesy of those who lined up to celebrate ... EVG contributor Stacie Joy was there for the action...
























[Simin Farkhondeh and daughter]


[Thanks to Ryan and Oona for the view!]

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Spring into a new season tonight with the 10th annual Zoroastrian fire jumping event


[Photo from 2017 by Ryan John Lee]

Tonight marks the 10th Annual Zoroastrian Fire Jumping Event ... taking place from 6:30 to 8:30 in the Firemen's Memorial Garden, 358 E. Eighth St. between Avenue C and Avenue D. Updated 1:30 p.m.: The event will now take once place again at La Plaza Cultural on Ninth Street and Avenue C.

Here's a recap via the EVG inbox...

Jumping over fire is a symbolic gesture to start a fresh new year. This tradition is celebrated for ringing in the Persian New Year and has been celebrated since at least 1700 BCE of the early Zoroastrian era. There will be music, dancing and snacks; wear your best fire-proof pants.

The Rude Mechanical Orchestra will also be playing.

The event is in a different location this year with the new-fence installation underway at La Plaza Cultural Community Garden on Avenue C and Ninth Street.

I reached out to Simin Farkhondeh, a community activist and professor at the School of Visual Arts, who has choreographed and produced the event since its inception here. I started by asking her if the new location might pose any addition challenges. She also provided more background as well as her fire-jumping experiences growing up in her native Iran...

For me, this event is very spontaneous each year. It comes together because the community loves it. The very first time I did it was 2010 and people came to the garden, helped make the fires and we jumped and had a wonderfully freeing time doing it.

This year will be like every year and the change of space should not impact the experience. We strive to make it a powerful and fun and safe event.

It will be the 10th time I've worked on having this spiritually elevating, spring welcoming event. The way I experienced it in my youth, in Iran, was as a spontaneous event that the community felt necessary to do to welcome and get ready for spring. It was done without permits from any government entity or such. We would go out into the street and community members would gather tumbleweed and build fire's together. Then we would jump over them.

On my street, we had about 15 fires, from the entry of our street, down to the end of it. All the neighbors would come out. It was an energizing, freeing experience and community building, and that spirit is what I've tried to preserve each year.

It is clear that this exhilarating event speaks to people not only who come from the Zoroastrian tradition but also brings together folks from across the spectrum of cultures. What binds us is the connection to the earth and the elements.

As in past years, many people and groups are helping ... The folks from the Fireman's Garden, who have been at our event and cherish it, have generously offered their garden to us. A lot of expats from the various Middle-Eastern communities, including Armenians, Iranians and Afghans, are going to be there as well as the folks from MoRUS and Time's UP, who in the past two years have helped a great deal to make this happen.

As in the past years, the event is organized to be a lot of fun, but also safe for all members of the community, especially children and families. As in every year, I plan to have the customary dried fruit and nuts available for people to enjoy. Since about five years now, there also has been a band present at some point of the evening, so we can dance and be merry after jumping the fires and cleansing our souls from the winter blues and from last year's troubles.

Wednesday, March 20, is the vernal equinox, which marks the beginning of spring and Nowruz or New Year for people of Iran, Afghanistan and other places. We will be making ourselves ready for that.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Things to do tonight that involve fire jumping



The 7th Annual Zoroastrian Fire Jumping Event is tonight at La Plaza Cultural on the southwest corner of Avenue C and Ninth Street.

Here are details via Facebook:

Jumping over fire is a symbolic gesture to start a fresh new year. This tradition is celebrated for ringing in the Persian New Year and has been celebrated since at least 1700 BCE of the early Zoroastrian era. There will be music, dancing and snacks; wear your best fire proof pants.

The event starts at 7 p.m. The rain date is Wednesday (tomorrow!) evening.