Fire Smoothie

blends the talents and style of Noel Yee and Aileen Lawlor. They have been training and performing with each other for half a decade. Combining their skills, they produce effective and kinetic choreography with partner poi and contact staff, whether it's on fire, glowing, or for a daytime performance.

Together they have taught throughout the country and performed worldwide, including the EJC in Germany 2008, Burning Man 2005--2009, Connecticut Wildfire Gathering, the Humboldt Juggling Festival, and the Crocker Museum of Sacramento.

Aileen Lawlor

grew up in northern New Jersey with her five brothers and three sisters. Her experience as one of the youngest to a unique family of musicians and artists fostered her passion for acting, movement, and Life. She studied theater arts throughout her youth, developing a love for performance and acting. She resumed her studies after high school at Hb Studios in New York City, where she trained in technique & scene study, kundalini yoga, stage combat, singing voice, movement for actors based on modern dance, and physical improv, based off of Viola Spolin's teachings.

She relocated to the Bay Area in 2004 to unfamiliar territory to enrich her experiences as an actor and explore the art of fire dancing. She continued acting in the Bay as a member of the Pan Theatre Improv Group, along with appearances in several indie and feature films.

In San Francisco she discovered an enthusiasm toward the Flow and Spinning Arts, delving into the practice of poi, contact staff, and FlowWand. Her exploration with object manipulation encouraged her studies of dance at CCSF, where she practiced modern and hip hop dance, in addition to ballet and salsa. Blending this into her performance, she has quickly established herself in the international spinning community as a dynamic dancer, displaying not only technical proficiency with her poi and staff skills, but a unique and graceful style that integrates her experience with yoga, dance, and gymnastics.

Aileen has appeared in instructional DVDs for Partner Poi, Contact Staff and Poi Technique, as well as the 2009 Circles of Light competition DVD. She has performed throughout the world and teaches group classes in the East Bay at the Flowspace and private classes out of her home at the Vulcan warehouse, which has become known worldwide as a hotbed for talent and innovation in the spinning and juggling arts.

Noel Yee

, a member of fire performance troupe Vulcan Crew, has been involved in object manipulation for the past five years, focusing on poi, staff, contact staff, double staff, contact juggling and most recently hoop. He values his experience training and collaborating with many talented individuals and groups including MCP from Scotland, Wildfire, Temple of Poi and juggler Michael Glenn from Sphereplay. Noel has performed in the Great Circle with the Fire Conclave at Burning Man for the past 5 years.

Noel is a founding member of the Spinagogue that hosts workshops around the bay and the whole country. Additionally he has taught staff/poi classes in the SF Bay Area, SF South Bay, New York City, Philadelphia, Austin, Phoenix, Boston and Los Angeles. In the summers of 2006, 2007, and 2008, Noel worked at Camp Winnarainbow teaching children of all ages circus skills and performance techniques.

As an instructor devoted to passing along his talents, Noel created and organized the schedule for FireDrums workshops. As well, he volunteered his time to instruct contact staff class for FireDrums in the fall of 2006, spring of 2007 and 2008. Recently Noel was a full time high school teacher in downtown SF for four years. He has currently taken time off to pursue his love of juggling. Noel has a talent for concise instruction and loves to keeps his students engaged. He has also co-produced 5 instructional DVDs, which include Poi Technique, Contact Staff, and Partner Poi from Vulcan DVDs.