Young man finds fire dancing community, carries torch

AMMAN — Anas Nahleh was organising a dance competition amongst friends when one of his teachers walked up to them, condemned dancers as “devil worshippers” and left him standing there a pariah. “From that day on, everyone looked at me and just [left me with] no friends,” he said.

The episode left a 14-year-old Nahleh an outlier who determined that school was not for him. 

He would tell his parents he was heading to the UN-funded school in Amman’s Jabal Nuzha neighbourhood, only to skip and hit the arcade or dance on the streets. He would live a lie, as he put it, adding that “when I saw my classmates crossing the streets and saying things, it made me shy”.

“A lot of people would want to fight me, and it [rumours] started to spread and sometimes the teachers would say things to me. So, I just felt it was not my place anymore.”

A friend and fellow dancer tipped him off so he could show up on exam day, and he struggled through school, eventually passing. But the dance skills he practiced on the streets translated and led into a profession he would pick up years later — fire performing. 

Film-maker and fire performer Deema Dabis met Nahleh after she came to Jordan in 2009. “I remember spinning fire on the First Circle and people just stopped and stared. Because, at the time I didn’t know anybody else doing fire in Jordan, so I would just do it randomly.”

During one of her performances at Amman’s First Circle, she added, “I heard a cop say something on the loud speaker and I thought for a second maybe he was telling me to stop, but it turned out somebody was blocking his view and he was telling them to move.”

Dabis met a fellow fire spinner and film-maker named Khalid, and the two would go on to orchestrate “fire jams”, a gathering for performers and artists to teach each other and practice their profession. 

An Ohio native, Dabis’ fascination with fire dancing took hold after seeing a friend perform. “It was just the experience of seeing this woman being so graceful and playful with this element that can burn you, and I was so in awe of how she was playing with the fire.”

Her father’s ancestry and a longing for Palestine eventually led her on a tour with a circus through the occupied West Bank, before she settled in Jordan.

The jams grew in popularity and even ended up spawning separate groups as different artists and performers showed up and the idea ignited. “It can be a real community builder… Fire is warm, it’s this beautiful light, you want to move towards it.”

Nahleh, who was competing in dance competitions in Dubai, Lebanon and Turkey with a team, eventually gravitated towards the jams and met Khalid, who gave him his first lesson on dancing with fire. “Anas saw Khalid performing and he wanted to learn, so he just started learning. He mostly learned on his own. He kind of took the torch from there.”

“After that, I was bringing my sticks and mops and started practicing,” Nahleh said. Learning mostly through YouTube, he fashioned his own staff from jugs and other instruments from socks, eventually receiving a staff as a gift from a friend who was leaving Jordan.

“I gave it as a gift to someone else, and the person I gave it to passed it to someone else, and hopefully it’ll keep going,” he said.

Since Dabis’ performance on the First Circle, Jordan’s fire community has grown. Nahleh estimates that there are now around 15 or more performers dancing with fire in Jordan professionally, with the number likely to grow as Nahleh offers lessons and has taken a leading role in organising fire jams, with the aim of recreating a community similar to one he visited in Colorado. 

The skills he first began practicing at the UN school in Jabal Nuzha have found their way into his fire performances, and according to him are what set him apart from other performers.

He and his brother, who he was first with when he became fascinated by a group of children breakdancing in Shmeisani, also plan on establishing a non-profit called Studio 8, with the aim of providing a space for performers and classes.

Since picking up the art, Nahleh has performed in front of private parties, diplomats, a crowd of thousands and his father; who invited him to perform at a bedouin wedding and constantly shares his videos.

“My dad is really supportive. In the beginning he didn’t like it, but after many years of working and him observing us travelling to different countries, he was curious and came to see us perform. He is really proud now,” Nahleh said, adding that he was still working on growing the community of fire performers in Jordan and teaching whoever was willing to learn. 

“It brought together a group of people. It was interesting because it birthed other things,” Dabis said of the fire jams and performing. “Fire is such a powerful element — it inspires, and it brings people together.”