Dance Dance Immolation was an interactive performance piece by fire art group Interpretive Arson based out of the artist work space known as NIMBY in East

Oakland Oakland is the largest city and the county seat of Alameda County, California, United States. A major West Coast port, Oakland is the largest city in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area, the third largest city overall in the Bay A ...

. It is a modified version of ''

Dance Dance Revolution (''DDR'') is a music video game series produced by Konami. Introduced in Japan in 1998 as part of the Bemani series, and released in North America and Europe in 1999, ''Dance Dance Revolution'' is the pioneering series of the rhythm and dance V ...

'' where players are shot with fire if they perform poorly. Participants are not harmed since they wear a

fire proximity suit A fire proximity suit (also, silvers, silver bunker suit, or asbestos suit) is a suit designed to protect a firefighter or volcanologist from extremely high temperatures. They were first designed and used in the 1930s. Originally made of asbest ...

with forced-air respirators. Numerous other safeguards are built into the system to ensure the players are not subject to direct flame exposure or inhalation of superheated air. The piece was premiered in 2005 and ran at various festivals and private events internationally. It was retired in 2013 at Burning Man, where all the components were gathered into a pile and a piano was dropped on it.

History

Members of Interpretive Arson began the project in 2005, when they received a grant from BORG2, an offshoot of artists associated with the West Coast art festival

Burning Man Burning Man is an event focused on community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance held annually in the western United States. The name of the event comes from its culminating ceremony: the symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred ...

. The game premiered at The Crucible's Fire Arts Festival in Oakland, California, before the current version, a full two-player game, was completed and installed at Burning Man in 2005. The game reappeared at Burning Man 2006 and 2007, and occasionally in Interpretive Arson's warehouse in Oakland, until 2007. In 2009 Dance Dance Immolation appeared at Smukfest in Denmark. In 2013, Dance Dance Immolation was taken back out to the Burning Man festival for its final run. It was, at the end of the week, destroyed by dropping a piano on it.

Press and awards

In 2010, Guinness World Records 2010 Gamer's Edition listed Dance Dance Immolation as the "Hottest Videogame", attaining a maximum of 1200˚ C (2192˚ F). Other awards: *San Francisco Bay Guardia
Best of The Bay 2009, Arts and Nightlife

References

External links

Dance Dance Immolation main site
Burning Man Culture of San Francisco Dance video games Music video games {{Music-videogame-stub