Flames twirl against the dark: gothic and tribal, pagan and punk, all at once.

The Empyre fire festival, a free event with shows, installations and food, returned to Adelaide this weekend for a fourth year.

Fire art has spread from Māori dance and Samoan knife spinning to postwar Hawaii tourism and raves.

It leapt into the culture of 1990s dance parties, where fire twirlers became a common sight, and to fire displays at Thailand’s full moon parties.

But the art of using fire for play and performance is predominantly from the Pacific, particularly the poi – balls on strings that are set on fire and incorporated in a dance.

Jax Watt is doing her PhD thesis on the whakapapa of contemporary fire poi at Massey University in New Zealand. She says the history of fire dancing, and the poi in particular, is fragmented, globalised and therefore hard to trace.

But Samoan knife spinning and fire poi were brought to Hawaii from all over the Pacific to entertain tourists, she says: “They essentially produced Hawaiian tourism to create the Pacific experience for American tourists.”

Through the 40s, 50s and 60s Freddie Letuli, inspired by a Hindu fire eater and US baton twirling, added fire to Samoan knife spinning and brought the whole shebang home to American Samoa, where he ended up as a senator.

Then, in the early 90s, circus performers who were also starting the electronic dance movement began fire dancing at festivals.

But before all of that is the long history of poi within Māori belief systems, with its own whakapapa linking back to the Māori gods.

Watt explains the complex migration of fire arts from Taiwan and the Philippines, the pre-colonial history of juggling games, and the myths of fire and the traditions of fire dancing.

She says there are ancient stories that link fire to play “such as Maui, who is known for his mischief across multiple Polynesian cultures, tricking the goddess Mahuika into giving him fire”.

And oral traditions link fire and heat to dance, including the story of Tāne-rore, son of Rā – the sun god – personified in heat rays where he’s said to be doing his dance, represented in Māori dance through the slight quivering of a hand.

In a light, airy studio in an alleyway off Adelaide’s seedy Hindley Street, the Dragon Mill School of Fire Art crew rehearse, moving quietly and fire-less through a range of movements with a series of fire props.

Tim Goddard, Dragon Mill’s founder and director, is a master poi spinner. He views fire spinning as both performance and meditative experience.

“It’s an interesting interaction between the performer and the people viewing it,” he says. “You have a little environment, quite a meditative space. It’s loud and bright … and you can’t think about anything else.”

The common props – staffs, hoops, fans and poi – have different backgrounds.

“The unifying element is that you can set it on fire and spin it around,” he says. “You can apply it to any other movement art that uses a prop. If it has a wick.”

Asked if there’s a spiritual element, Goddard prefers to speak of the community interaction, alongside the cultural history, and of reaching a state of flow.

On stage, the team match dramatic makeup and costumes with their tattoos and dreadlocks.

Watt says today’s fire art, while relatively young, doesn’t conflict with Indigenous belief systems.

“So there is this Polynesian history that is deep and complex, that is not the same as fire art but connected by inspiration from crossovers,” she says, adding: “This kind of fusion, hive-mind situation started happening.”