The 'Flame' Story

Flame Fire Productions was formed when Holly Wademan moved to Queenstown in 2000 and met Milly Begley. Holly was a whiz on the staffs and Milly was a poi Goddess, so they decided to combine their talents and offer their skills to the corporate market.

After numerous gigs, they decided to take fire to the next level and produce a choreographed and creative fire show for art's sake. They researched the Maori myth of Lake Wakatipu and gathered 10 performers to be part of the show - Legend of the Lake. It was a success, attracting an audience of 1000 from as far afield as Christchurch!

Holly then left New Zealand to travel and worked with leading UK Performing Arts company Tepooka and the Beltane Fire Society in Edinburgh to produce and choreograph several large fire shows including the Lughnasadh Celtic harvest festival

When Holly returned to Queenstown late 2001, Flame approached Queenstown Winter Festival to produce a large fire show for its opening night.

Fire and Ice featured at the QT Winter Fest 2002 opening and went on to show at Wanaka Fest and the Dunedin Fringe Festival and is still talked about.

Holly then went to OZ to work as an artist on the Southern Hemisphere's largest fire event featured at the Woodford Folk Festival, New Year's Eve 2002/ 03. She worked full-time for one-month building props, working on concepts and choreography for Under the Volcanoe. The show involved 1500 performers to an audience of 40 000.

Flame's next large scale production The Fire Tree went a step further and featured as a stand alone ticketed event at the 2003 QT Winter Fest attracting an audience of 600 into minus temperatures! The show was invited to feature at Wanaka Fest two months later and attracted an audience of 2000!

A revamped and refined version of The Fire Tree called Mahuika's Fire featured at the NZ Fringe Fest '04 in Wellington where it once again attracted large crowds and was an instant hit.

In '04 Flame was approached by the Queenstown Winter Festival to produce a fire show based around the Maori legend of the lake to open the festival. They also commissioned Flame to design and construct the Festival Flame which was a giant lantern with a gas flame on top and burnt continuously for 10 days on roof of Steamer Wharf.

Flame had a big 2006. We performed at numerous festivals down in the deep south including the Arrowtown Autumn Festival and Alexandra Blossom Festival. Our biggest event was the launch of our new Pyrodance show 'Evolution' at the Queenstown Winter Festival Opening. The spectacular and innovative production debuted to an audience of over 10 000 and received rave reviews. We also spent time in Invercargill working with the local community to produce Fire and Ice - a community fire show that attracted a 2000 strong crowd in the dead of winter
2007 is already booking up fast for Flame and looking into the future, they hope to be part of Napier's Fire Solstice Festival again and tour to Wanganui's inaugural Winter Fire Festival.