A friend of mine choriographs sword dancing/fights. Check out my profile and email Carrie (there's pix of her "fighting" some chick in her profile)...

I own a kendo stick and a steel mace but that is it. I just purchased a copy of Darrell Craig's book on Kendo, and may sign up for lessons in the near future depending on how my financial situation.

I taught Kendo for a few years before I used a fire sword. I actually found it about as much of a hinderance as it was a help. Sure, you have all the right muscles built up, but you get in this mode of thought, attack-return-parry-etc, that just doesn't look good with fire. Even some of the dancier forms like WuShu don't translate well. I had to retrain myself into doing a bunch of moves that you'd never use at all in combat.

If you're planning on doing fire sword combat, it helps a lot to know how to defend yourself but you'll have to alter a lot of your stances and moves because of the amount of light given off by the sword.

I teach a sword dance with Middle Eastern flair...but I won't be visiting CA for a few months...not sure where in CA you are...if you are near Oceanside, see Morwenna & Walid Assaf.... MECDA, SAMEDA also may be close to you...if you are near the valley, check in with the arabian jewels....
www.rakkasah.com/index.htm
is a festival coming up next weekend near you! it is one of the best in the country! look at the different performers onthe list and see who is close to you..just about every belly dancer has a sword dance, it is like one part of the basic 4 food groups!
good luck!
capoeira is another place you may find your teacher!

Weeelll.... my personal firesword style is derived from Wushu (being IMHO one of the more beautiful but less "useful" martial arts) - most of the moves are culled from various wushu sword forms, with an emphasis on the dramatic movements. The most difficult part of solo-fire sword spinning (and indeed in fire staves too) may be trying to make the movements flow, rather than choppy. My advice would be to apply yerself to kungfu or wushu, and then extrapolate from the moves you learn there...

I've recently joined this tribe (if you'll have me) have recently started lighting up my swords.

While fire is relatively new to me, sword "dance" is pretty familiar - I have a school in Vancouver, Canada dedicated to Southeast Asian weapon arts
www.maelstromCore.com
where sword (and knife and stick and staff, etc.) are taught from Filipino, Indonesian, and Thai fighting arts.

One of the unique things about southeast Asian martial arts is that they have already translated the fighting to dance. Typically the martial art is performed culturally (e.g. at festival) in the form of dance. Anyone familiar with the exotic Balinese dance for example can imagine how they stylize their martial dance as well.

In pencak silat (Indonesian), they separate the two sides of the arts into "kembunguan" and "buah" or "flower" and "fruit". The "flower" is usually the dance form - sort of like a kata but typically much more stylized. It contains the essence of the combat but designed for performance (as well as practice). The mini-katas of any given pencak silat (there are 100s of different systems and styles) are referred to as "jurus" and can be executed in either "flower" or "fruit" modalities.

The "fruit" is of course the combat execution - usually very short, sharp and effective. Brutally so in many cases - pencak silat tends toward being nasty.

All that said, the southeast Asian arts have provided me with ample substance for fire sword routines. Of course, some of it still doesn't translate (e.g. when the blade is too close to the body) - however, the graceful movements and exotic posturing flow really nicely with the flame.

Pencak silat is very rare though - If you have an opportunity to train kali/arnis/eskrima (the FIlipino stick fighting arts), you may find similar materials. Some forms of kali are again not quite suitable - but my system of Pekiti-Tirsia tends to the exotic and rounder movements and translates well.

Finally, rarer than both, krabi krabong is a Thai sword system that I am just putting flame to - except for some postures which have blade contacting the arms (kevlar sleeves, anyone?), it looks almost ideal for stylistic movements. It too has both dance and combat modalities.

Hope that helps.

P.S. Wushu is easily the most accessible and applicable source of Chinese sword form for fire IMHO. If you can find it, try it.