Flam Chen

noh ee ba kah mee-noh ee ba kah ee haa

Established Apr 1994

Tucson

Flam Chen Demo Reel 2007

Music by Not Breathing

News

RITES OV SPRING FLAM CHEN & 7 PIPERS create a special performance for The Arizona State Museum "Marking the Solstice" Saturday June 21, 2008 FREE all day activities start late afternoon The AZ State Museum is Just inside the main gate at Park &University and to the left Live Music, performance, great food and fun! Flam Chen & 7 Pipers start around dusk!

About

FLAM CHEN is a pyrotechnic theatre troupe based in Tucson, Arizona.
Over a dozen years in the making and over 1500 professional performances worldwide, Flam Chen has innovated a New Form of extreme theatre-utilizing aspects of new circus tactic, martial arts weaponry, aerial, stilting, ritual theater and installation art all set in the medium of fire, unlike any other fire show or performance art you have seen.
We create unique panoramas of spectacle and narrative— Performers spin Balinese fire chains, combat with fire staffs and flaming swords, dance with fire fingers and fire fans, eat and breathe flames, and light costume pieces, sculptures and very often the set itself ablaze during the course of the evening.
At a Flam Chen show, you may be invited to witness a TOYBOX come to life with 10-foot dolls, battling toy-soldiers and manic puppet-makers. RITES OV SPRING merges images inspired by bug life in Microcosmos and the Bacchanal of Fellini's Satyricon, all mingled with the choreographic influence of Martha Graham. Other audiences may find themselves ensnared by the macabre web of MS. SPYDER’S COMBUSTIBLE TEA PARTY, the otherworldly aura of the KOKAPI and their magical handlers or witness to the MONKEY KING and his delightfully sublime antics.
Flam Chen propels itself above the audience on flying trapeze, zip lines, rappels and bungee, creating dazzling characters that hover, zoom or drop out of the sky. We wrap the audience in visions ranging from futuristic and cyborg, commedia del arte and vaudevillian, to fantasy and fairy tale-esque.
We have, over the years, become a production company that fabricates costumes, props, machines, rigging, lighting, and sound— all in house with in the vast talents and skills of our troupe and our talented creative community.
FLAM CHEN has wowed audiences worldwide and has enriched the cultural memory of many international communities. We have performed at large events, such as ELECTRIC DAISY CARNIVAL in Hollywood, at arts festivals such as NYC FRINGE in New York, High Sierra Music Festival in Quincy, CA, Philly FRINGE, TSUNAMI ARTS FESTIVAL in Prescott, AZ, International Arts Festival of MACAU, China, GLITTER AND GLOW festival in Glendale, AZ; Just for Laughs and Theatre de Rue in Quebec, Canada and at numerous site-specific installations across the nation and overseas.
FLAM CHEN hosts and produces international performance artists at its’ facility in Tucson Arizona and other local venues. We perform benefits for many communities, multitudes of charitable organizations and are co-founders of the Annual ALL SOULS’ PROCESSION which draws upwards of 10,000 of participants citywide and performers and creatives from all over the world.
FLAM CHEN has earned awards such as Tucson Weekly's Best Performing Artist Award for three years, and a NY FRINGE Excellence Award for "Rites Ov Spring", as well as Congressional Recognition for our standards of community outreach. The troupe also has been raved about in The New York Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Tribune, Dance Spirit and Details, among other publications.
“An adventure from the get-go...this gig is pure fun and fantasy... casting an atmosphere of wonderment.” City Paper-Philadelphia “… like Cirque du Soleil , if they had fire instead of money” Derek Powazek-Boing Boing-San Francisco "Moments of delicate poignancy, erotic charge and pure visual beauty." —The Tucson Weekly "Flam Chen presents fiery spectacles that burn through genres and incinerate categories..."—Millennium Magazine