Ian Smith discovered fire dance seven years ago during his freshman year at Wesleyan University. During his senior year, he was named president of the fire performance club, Prometheus. In November 2005, after spending the summer studying at the American Dance Festival, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area.
Since relocating, Ian has studied modern dance with Joe Goode, Ben Levy, the Dance Monks, Kira Kirsch (the Axis Syllabus), and has performed with Kim Epifano and Epiphany productions.
Ian resides at the Vulcan, a hot bed of the Bay Area fire dance scene, and is deeply involved in all Spinagogue events. He has taught fire dance workshops at Fire Drums, Wild Fire (CT), Wesleyan University, Vassar College, New York City, Boston, and in Athens, Greece at the European Juggling Convention, among others. In addition to performing with Copper Lantern Fire Theater, he currently performs with many other groups. He is a founding member of the Vulcan Crew and LumenAscent. Ian trained for the Presidency of the Temple of Poi, and was part of the school’s fire troupe, MN8FX. He worked as Marketing Director for Fire Pixie Entertainment, and continues to perform for the company as a children’s entertainer and fire performer. He also choreographs and performs for the band, Think13; the performance group, Lucid Dream Lounge; and the modern dance company, In Step Dance Theater. His prop repertoire includes poi, staff, double staves, double whips, fire eating/fire contact, rope, nunchakus, flow wand, contact juggling, ball and club juggling, and the slinky.