Dan Miethke

Dan Miethke
Dan Miethke performing for Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at the Burj Al Arab. Photo by Michelle Yaffe.
Born	(1980-06-01) 1 June 1980 Melbourne, Australia
Occupation	Circus Performer, Fire Dancer
Website	http://www.sparkfiredance.com

Dan Miethke is an Australian-born, UK-based autodidact cirque performer specialising in fire dance. He is notable for very large fire manipulation with unique special effects and pyrotechnics.

His international performance career received recognition in 2006, when he was invited to perform at the Burj Al Arab in front of the Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. He formally coached and performed a fire act in the Cirque du Soleil show “Zaia” 2008-2012 and performed a lead character in the show, the Shaman.^[1]

He is recognised as a world specialist in OH&S regarding fuels for fire performance, handheld special effects and handheld pyrotechnics. Dan has performed, coached and consulted in 45 countries worldwide.^[2]

'Dragons Breath' fire swords

Specialty

His special skills include the fire dancing apparatus of swords, double staffs, poi, ropes and long staff. His style is contemporary focusing on body presentation, high energy movements and close body technical fire manipulation.^[3] He is currently the only fire performer known to use 'Dragons Breath' Fire Swords.

Career

Dan started martial arts, dancing and fire performance at a young age. However, his interests lay more in arts than in competition. Festivals were his first exposure to performing for large crowds and creatively combining prop and body movement to music.^[4]

After high school he formed his own performing arts company and successfully bid for national and international performance contracts.^[5] After establishing his business with solo, duo and group performances in the Middle East, Europe and Asia, both under his own company Pyroptix and with the renowned FlameOz,^[6][7][8][9] he moved away from an organisational role and back to focusing on his own performance development.

In 2008 he was accepted into Phoenix Productions^[10] based in Vienna, where he trained and performed with their performing arts coaches. Dan's double fire swords routine developed into a world-class technically original skill based on power jumps and close tracing of fire across his chest and back while executing acrobatic moves such as aerial cartwheels. His work with Phoenix Productions led to performances in 38 cities across 5 continents.^[11]

In 2010 He created a fire duet with Stephanie Höggerl for Resorts World Sentosa and Universal Studios in Singapore presenting 180 fire shows and 60 aerial shows in 10 weeks. His company Pyroptix was rebranded as Spark Fire Dance in 2011.

Cirque du Soleil

In 2010 Cirque du Soleil signed Dan as their first Australian fire artist, to perform in the production of Zaia in the Venetian Macau. He is currently the only contemporary firedance artist on any Cirque du Soleil show.

Dan performing in Zaia - Cirque du Soleil production in the Venetian Macau

Notable performances

Dan has performed with and for celebrities and royalty across the world.

• Paris Hilton, Sharon Stone, Richard Gere, Seal, Mariah Carey, Tom Jones, & Monica Bellucci at the Mardan Palace opening in Antalya, Turkey.^[12]
• Jennifer Lopez, George Michael, Ricky Martin & Kate Moss at Sir Phillip Greens 55th on Soneva Fushi, Maldives.^[13]
• Supporting Taylor Swift, Psy (entertainer), Alicia Keys, No Doubt, and Lady GaGa at the MTV European Music Awards in 2012 at the Frankfurt Festhalle in Germany.
• With Nelly and Phoenix Productions at a private villa in Monaco for an unnamed Russian mafia head.
• For Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum at the Burj Al Arab for the Zenith (watchmaker) Launch.^[14]
• For the Qatari royal family at the Women's World Tennis Championship 2009 in Doha Qatar ^[15] and Qatar's Crown Prince Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani at the Crown Prince Cup soccer match in Doha 2013 ^[16]
• For the Princes of the House of Saud, Sheiks of Dubai, Sharja and Abu Dhabi, Heads of State of Jordan, President of Azerbaijan^[17]
• For the Bahrain royal family at Zaia in 2011
• For the President of Azerbaijan at the Four Seasons opening in Baku in 2012
• Dan performed on TV shows in China,^[18] Australia,^[19][20] Slovakia^[21] Germany^[22] and Austria.^[23]
• Dan’s skills have been featured on the ‘Circles of Light 2006’^[24] 'Circles of Light 2010'^[25] and both the ‘Doublestaff Manipulation’ and 'Dancing with Firestaff' DVD’s.^[26]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Dan Miethke.

• sparkfiredance.com Dan Miethke’s Official website
• about.me/sparkfire Dan Miethke’s About.me page
• facebook.com/pages Dan Miethke’s Facebook fan page
• cirquetribune.com Dan Miethke listing on the Cirque Tribune Database
• lifestyleasia.com Lifestyle Asia Interview with Dan "Playing with Fire Interview with ZAIA's Fire Dancer"
• cirquedusoleil.com/en/shows/zaia Cirque Du Soleil Zaia official website