photos by Hannah Huff 

Laura Ann Edmonds spends her days telling stories to children in the quiet surroundings of an Asheville public library. But come darkness, another character emerges, one that might live in a gothic novel on the library’s bookshelves: Lulu, a wild and dramatic performer who spins a fire baton and whirls a flaming hula hoop.

Born and raised in Charleston, the 34-year-old told tales from the time she could talk.  She would sing or dance on a dime. “If we had company over, we’d put the Barry Manilow album on and I’d dance for whoever would watch me,” she says.

Edmonds, who studied drama in high school and history at Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, took a job as a substitute librarian in the Buncombe County system in 1999. She liked the work, wanted to tell stories to children and eventually found a full-time gig doing just that at the Oakley branch. Inside the quiet librarian, however, there was an extrovert lurking. “I’m proud of my quiet library,” she says. “But I’ve always been a dancer, I’ve always been a performer. Gimme a microphone, that’s my deal.”

When she first saw Unifire at the 2005 Lake Eden Arts Festival in Black Mountain, she was intrigued. The eight-member dance theatre troupe draws on ancient tribal traditions to create their elaborate fiery routines. They toss, juggle, twirl and twist with everything from flaming swords to hats and jump ropes. With a background in ballet, gymnastics, martial arts and West African dance, Edmonds knew she could play with fire too.

She started in Unifire’s safety unit, on hand at performances with wet towels and a water bucket. Then she started narrating shows and eventually made her first “fire staff,” a baton lit on both ends, which she twirls around her neck and torso while dancing. After months of practice, in the spring of 2006, she officially became a “fire spinner.”  
Now, she and Unifire perform a variety of shows every month, from short vignettes at birthday parties and movie openings to intricate 50-minute shows that take weeks of preparation—all with a fire permit that Edmonds gets from the Asheville Fire Department.

This summer, at her home in Black Mountain, Edmonds is creating a “fire washboard,” just like the musical instrument except with power-drilled holes for Kevlar, a synthetic material that can absorb fuel and be safely lit on fire. An unusual project for a librarian, certainly. But for Edmonds, it’s one more chapter in the life of Lulu, another trick to make sure her audience, young or old, keeps paying attention.