Drums thunder as the Napoleonic, white-faced troupe walks six abreast down the street; a figure beneath a frame with rams' horns cavorts around them. When they stop and form a circle, the soldiers' costumes erupt with fireworks.
In Capetown, people brought chairs from their houses to watch Deabru Beltzak perform, having no idea that they would actually be moving around. In Mexico, they were so famous after four nights performing that they couldn't leave their hotel without security.
![Deabru Beltzak at the Norfolk and Norwich Festival in England.](/web/20161007163117im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/u/b/4/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gruas0.png/1475551634907.jpg)
"I'm ashamed to say that," says Oscar Castano "Garbitxu", the company's artistic director. "It was like being Michael Jackson. You have to learn to be humble in that situation."
Garbitxu formed Deabru Beltzak, which translates to "black devil", when he met Cesar Arroyo in a bar and realised they had the same dream of forming a theatre group that would be young, vital and appeal to people their own age. They come from the Basque country in Spain, where Garbitxu says that the little theatre on offer was staid and dull.
![Deabru Beltzak performing Les Tambours de Feu.](/web/20161007163117im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/u/b/4/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gruas0.png/1475612391005.jpg)
Twenty years and 800 shows later, they are still devising street shows around fire, explosions, drums and the devil.
"Fire and pyrotechnics are a real drug," laughs Garbitxu over coffee in Bilbao's stately Plaza Nueva. "The gunpowder, it creates a smell you get addicted to! And the fire itself is a kind of medicine."
Chasing fire through the streets is not a Basque tradition – that is borrowed, says Garbitxu, from the Catalans, who will actually try to get under the burning braziers and collect spark burns in the full extremist carnival spirit.
"That's the game: it means 'run with the fire', and it's fire for the sake of it," he says. "We try to play with the fire as an image."
![Les Tambours de Feu: "drums of fire".](/web/20161007163117im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/u/b/6/0/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gruas0.png/1475798900619.jpg)
Devils and witches, however, could hardly be more Basque. The company's devils first strutted their scary stuff at Zugarramurdi, a village of about 230 people near the Pyrenees that has been celebrating its reputation as the epicentre of Spanish witchcraft for hundreds of years.
Every year since the 17th century, the Zugarramurdi cave system has been the venue for a party with numerous bonfires and spit roasts, commemorating the martyrdom of the village's witches. The Inquisition arrested about 7000 people in the area on suspicion of witchcraft and burned about 30 of them to death.
![A centuries old tradition lives on.](/web/20161007163117im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/r/u/b/4/d/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gruas0.png/1475551634907.jpg)
These days, about 17,000 people descend on the village every summer solstice for the pagan tribute.
"It's the most popular celebration in the area but was done in an amateur way," says Garbitxu. "So what we did when we went in was train the people in music and acting to create something similar but more professional, with a different theme every year."
They orchestrated the Zugarramurdi celebrations for 10 years until the huge numbers – about 9000 people would cram into the caves – and burgeoning fires simply felt too unsafe.
With the village's permission, they took elements of the show and turned it into a street spectacle that has since travelled to five continents.
Health and safety regulations are their biggest challenge – especially in Australia, of course – but they have visited countries where the local priests were up in arms once they realised that their leading character was the Horned One.
"But then the opposite has happened as well," says Garbitxu. "One of the best shows we ever did was in France around a church where the priest did the bells and everything."
For Deabru Beltzak, the excitement lies in devising new spectacles and, in the most recent show, their own music. In performance, it is getting close to the people on the street and involving them. In the past, Garbitxu says, they have experimented with piano and ballet dancing, but festival organisers like to see the pieces they have seen before.
"They ask for what they are used to because that is what they want," he says. "So we came to the conclusion it's better to try to perfect what we do and take it to the next level."
Les Tambours de Feu takes place nightly at 8.30 at Federation Square, October 6 to 8. Free.
The Age is a Melbourne Festival media partner.
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