Commissioned by the Yarilo Duo for their 2012 season, Firewalk draws influences from Bulgarian folk music and the tradition of nestinari fire walking. The practice of walking or dancing over hot coals exists in many cultures, on almost every continent of the world, and represents an act of initiation or spiritual purification where the lower self is burned away so that the purified inner life can be expressed. In my composition, a spark is struck at the beginning, lighting the coals while the participants gather around the ritual space. Then a dance begins, using the skipping and leaping rhythms of Bulgarian horo dances, gradually building in energy and excitement. At the peak of the dance, we shoot upwards on a column of flame and blast off into space and the higher spheres. The final melody we hear is from the famous song Izlel je Delyo Haydutin, which is flying off into outer space on the Golden Record of the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes. As the tune moves away from the Earth and prepares to leave the solar system, the signal grows fainter and finally breaks off entirely.
