PLAYING WITH FIRE

By Karin Higgins

Jumping through hoops is one thing. Lighting them on fire and dancing with them is another altogether.

Students in the fire performance group SaDa Fuego not only dance with blazing hoops but also spin and twirl flaming balls, poles and fans.

SaDa Fuego has seven performers, but the group’s weekly practices—Thursday nights on the Quad and Sunday afternoons in Sacramento—draw about 20 people, about half of them UC Davis students, said Kara Moore, an ecology doctoral student and fire dancer.

Previous experience is varied—including Maori poi dance (twirling balls on strings), baton, Chinese and Brazilian martial arts, juggling, hula hoops, belly dance and swing dance—but Moore said each participant shares a respectful fascination with fire. In addition to Moore, the group’s UC Davis members include a physics doctoral student and a classics student.

Moore said they follow a number of safety precautions. In addition to campus requirements to keep practice sessions within clearly marked boundaries with 10 gallons of water on hand, they also bring two fire extinguishers and fire-retardant blankets to smother any wayward flames.
Some students used to practice in Davis’ Central Park, drawing the attention of police officers. “Sometimes they would ask us to stop,” Moore said.

She said she rarely gets burned. “You learn the boundaries of what you can do,” she said. None of SaDa Fuego members are fire breathers. Moore said she draws her own line when it comes to walking on burning coals. “I think it sounds horrible.”

The group’s Web site at www.sadafuego.com features a video and information about upcoming shows.

FAUX FACE

Chancellor Larry Vanderhoef has a lengthy profile on the online college directory Facebook. The only thing is, he didn’t post it.

“I think his bio was somebody else’s creative essay,” said Maril Stratton, assistant chancellor for communications.

Under “About me,” the mock profile lists two nicknames—“The Hoff” and “L. Vizzle.”

By mid-May, the faux profile linked to 1,030 friends at UC Davis. About 50 students posted messages, most of them jokes. But a few apparently took it seriously.

“I was kind of dismayed that it wasn’t real,” first-year student Daryl Suyat told the chancellor at a recent student forum, according to a report in the California Aggie.

Vanderhoef said he was open to student suggestions that he create a real account.

HOW'S THE WATER?

A plan to pump reclaimed water into the arboretum waterway is welcome news to Bob Powell, professor and chair of chemical engineering and materials science. Powell headed an ad hoc committee that proposed the idea in 1999.

Powell said piping in fully treated water from the campus wastewater treatment plant should dramatically improve the look and smell of the 2-mile-long pond.

When the waterway clears up, he told the staff/faculty newspaper Dateline UC Davis: “You can take a picture of me swimming in it.”

WORD WISE

Campus librarians who know a lot about looking up words coined a few terms of their own for a recent series of posters aimed at undergraduates. The posters—displayed in the lobby of Shields Library, on MU kiosks and inside Unitrans buses—gave names to stages commonly experienced by students facing big class projects. Among them:

• “Paperitis, the cold, sinking feeling that hits when your unwritten paper is due.”

• “Searchophobia, the inexplicable and illogical fear of catalogs and article databases.”

• “Researchology, the art and science of finding the right stuff.”

The portmanteaus, or blended words, were created by librarians in the Shields Library Instruction Services Department to educate students about classes, reference services and other help offered by the library.

The message seems to be getting through. Sandra Vella, department head, said librarians from other California colleges and universities asked if they could get copies after seeing them at a conference in April. But more importantly, the posters have led UC Davis students to library information desks. “I did have some kids come up and say, ‘I have paperitis. I need help,’” Vella said.