Whips, fire breathing, body contortions and acrobatics came to the Algonquin Commons on Sept. 8 when the Students Association’s Buskerfest event was held.
A crowd gathered around the first performer of the event — Fireguy, an infamous fire performer who made a name for himself when a video of him burning went viral on YouTube. He is the only performer in the world who can skate on his uni-board and juggle fire at the same time. His other antics included juggling and fire swallowing.
“The show was great; the crowd was really awesome and responded well to the jokes, even the ones on the edgy side,” said Brant Mathews aka Fireguy who dazzled the student audience with his fire breathing, juggling and balancing act.
Fireguy offered advice to students on campus, saying, “If there’s one thing I would tell a college student, it would be to find one thing, one ability you have, and become so good at it you get paid. That’s what I did with fire.”
His audience seemed to agree.
“It was unreal, I haven’t seen anything like that before,” said Josh Kasey, a first-year police foundations student.
The commons was set up with an aerial silk learning station and hula-hoop training area as well. Students climbed fabric and balanced on an elevated hula-hoop for all those in the commons to see.
“It was awesome, I always wanted to try something like this before. I’m so glad for the opportunity,” said Valerie Warmer, a first-year business student who participated in some aerial silk lessons.
Another performer who used fire as his main element was Billion Cobra aka Aiden Koper, who has been featured on TedTalks, David Letterman and the Ellen Degeneres Show. He opened his show with a very awkward dance routine and then proceeded to break out the fire. But what made him unique was his use of a whip; he even had a student volunteer hold a match and whipped it out of his hand.
During Koper’s event, it started raining heavily, but despite the weather, students stuck around to watch the stunts.
“It was a great show, we had some rain but most people stuck around; that’s when you know you have a good audience. I really enjoyed my performance here,” said Koper.