Meet Kelley Franek | Flow Artist & Fire Performer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Kelley Franek and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Kelley, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
When my twin sister Kayla and I were in highschool we would go to a lot of concerts and music festivals. My sister would always go up and bother the gogo dancers and ask if we could get up and try it, she almost got us on the stage one time! We have always been just so entranced by all the belly dancers, aerialists, hula hoopers and fire spinners, I thought you had to be like a trained professional to do that sort of stuff like I could never do that. Till I went to my first camping festival in 2014 called Sonic Bloom and girls all around were hula hooping in ways I have never seen before and there was poi flying everywhere, it was like an ah-ha moment of I can do this too! As soon as I got home I bought my first hula hoop, not as easy as you would think. It took me about 2-3 years to actually get a comfortable flow going and another year to develop my own style. My sister has always been my biggest supporter and hype woman. When she passed away in 2017 I literally made it my top priority to follow my dream and hope that one day I would be up on the stage and be that person that both me and my sister were so entranced with, and I know she would be screaming that’s my sister! That’s my sister! It’s been 9 years of dedication to flow arts and everything leading up to me finally performing for the first time on a stage last year is because of my sister and her constant support when I was starting out. My boyfriend has also been so amazing and extremely supportive, he makes music under the name Pheel. and is constantly inspiring me! Seeing him do his thing on the stage always made me want to get up there with him, then finally I got to perform with him for the first time in 2022 at The Family Funktion and it was everything I dreamed of. I am extremely grateful to all the people who saw my hard work I put into doing this everyday, it is definitely not easy and I still think sometimes, “oh I’m not as good as the other performers I haven’t been doing it as long as them” but that’s when you have to remind yourself everyone has different styles and you have been working on this for so many years, I was chosen out of hundreds of other amazing flow artists, “I got this!” Then you get on and all your fellow flow artists are screaming “YES GIRL”, “SO GOOD”,”WHAT DID YOU SEE THAT”! Getting on a stage or even just hula hooping around 20 people let alone 3,000 people scared me so much I was shaking the whole time and it was super out of my comfort zone but the support of the flow art and even the festival community is overwhelming and 100% reassured me that I want to do this for the rest of my life. I think people need to get out of their comfort zone more often because you might never know how much you love something until you go out and do it. Believing in yourself definitely pays off. I can’t wait to see where my journey of performing leads me and all the amazing people I meet along the way.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Flow arts is I guess you could say a type of dance that involves a prop, there are so many different types of props like; hula hoops, contact staff, juggling staves, fire fans, silk fans, buugeng, poi, dragon staff, fire eating and so much more. It’s a lot like the circus but my style has more dance involved. I like to use my props to the beat of the songs and use it more like a dance partner then something I’m trying to force and manipulate. The props I use the most are hula hoops, double staves, palm torches and working more on fire eating. I have been hooping for about 9 years now and it opened me up to so many more props like double staff. I have been spinning double staves for 5 years now and I picked up fire eating during COVID. I was trying to expand my skills in different props because I felt like I had more of a chance to get picked to perform at music festivals because at the time I felt like everybody hula hooped and did poi so I wanted to expand my skill set to help with the chances. It took so many years of applying and applying and I couldn’t get a spot but I never gave up and continued to practice everyday. I wanted to see if I could do this on my own and still determined to do so. I don’t have a Facebook or a performer website for my art/performance which actually makes it very hard for people to want to accept you to perform, I only have Instagram and YouTube. I also am not insured yet but I am fire safety trained. Not having insurance as a fire performer is a big risk to take for a company to want to hire you but I am extremely grateful to the festivals and flow artists that did finally say yes after 6 years of constant applying to so many festivals. I knew not having insurance would be risky but I also have 2 other jobs and can’t fully persue fire performing. Unfortunately at a lot of these festivals they don’t pay the dancers and performers for their years of training and hard work, so it would be very hard for me to just quit my full time job to persue an unpaid gig. But I will still continue to apply and perform to build my resume and eventually get paying gigs! Even though I’m not making money from it I am still having a blast doing it because it is what I really want to do with my life. My biggest accomplishment was this past September 2022 at Unison Festival in Durango, I actually almost backed out from doing it because I had never done something this big and professional before and I ended up dropping out of the interview because I was scared but then I got an email like 2 weeks later saying CONGRATULATIONS YOU HAVE BEEN ACCEPTED! I was like this has got to be a mistake! But it wasn’t! I was having a tiny panic attack and after about three days of basically pacing back and forth I accepted. I was so nervous going into it all like oh I can’t meas this up I have to be super professional. When I got there I couldn’t find anyone and was freaking out but eventually found them all. I was just the shy girl in the corner and felt super out of place because I was surrounded by so many AMAZING performers. That night I got on to perform for the headliner in front of 3,000 people on a real stage for the first time and spinning fire. I was shaking the whole time thinking, “don’t catch the stage on fire, don’t throw the flaming stick into the crowd, oh gosh the musician is right next to me I’m going to catch him on fire!” And when I got off all my fellow performers we’re like, “YOU ARE SO GOOD HOLY COW!” I was so shook and flattered! After that I was ready like put me in coach! All fear went away and that’s when I really knew this was my true calling! Don’t ever give up on yourself, I got shut down for 6 years and never gave up! Take risks and live your life!

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Food places I would take them to and my favorites from there: First watch (the juice is amazing)
Asian Cajun (fried alligator 10/10)
Uncle ramen (spicy chicken ramen and softshell crab bao bun)
Ginza sushi (dynamite roll)
Gyros and kabobs (wings 10/10 gyros 10/10)
Saucys southern (everything so good)
Linger (basically everything is amazing)

Drink places:
Retrograde

We all know Denver has a huge music scene some of my favorite venues are:
The Black Box
Cervantes masterpiece ballroom
Mission ballroom
Red rocks

Go for an art day walk around downtown to see all the murals and sculptures and stop at some of my favorite art galleries, Threyda and the Mirus Gallery and go to an art show. CASA BONITA when it’s open! On Sundays there is a flow art meet up at Cheeseman Park with music and you can learn from people and hang out and flow together it’s super cool. People are selling their art

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I want to thank my parents for their constant support I couldn’t do it without them! I want to thank my roommate Virginia Larsen for being my best friend and number one fan.
Shout out to my Savannah Georgia squad Patrick Stillwaggon, Nick Stillwaggon and Victoria Paterno couldn’t have done anything without these people in my life. Shout out all of Turtle Fam you know who you are!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kelleyrose.flows/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@kelleyroseflows

Image Credits
Victoria Paterno Sage Thomas Shoshana Glickman