A half-dozen performers who dance with fire and a trumpet player named Phoenix, who blows 6-foot flames from a horn, are set to march Sunday with a demon and lead thousands of Detroiters in an annual spectacle of renewal.

"It's a great way to wake up out of winter," said Chrissie Bingham, who organized the troupe of flame tamers. "Once the Nain Rouge parade happens, we know spring is almost here and the reason to be outside and play with our friends."

The Marche du Nain Rouge, in its 10th year, is based on the more than 300-year-old legend of Detroit's founder, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac, and Nain Rouge, which is French for red dwarf and also often referred to as a demon.

"Anyone can show up," Clare Pfeiffer, one of the organizers, said. "Unlike other parades, where you show up and watch, you are the parade. It's thousands of people proceeding together."

The Midtown event is set to begin with performances at noon at Canfield and Second Avenue, the step-off with a parade at 1:30 p.m., west on Canfield, south of Second Avenue and then circling Cass Park, and heading back to the Masonic Temple.

According to the legend, the Nain appeared to Cadillac in a dream. The imp was a harbinger of doom, and Cadillac was warned to stay away. Instead, Cadillac chased the Nain away with a stick, and he died penniless.

In the Marche, the Nain is presented as a full-grown, demon-like adult.

"Everyone else is marching out the Nain Rouge," Bingham, 29, said. "But we — the fire dancers — are kind of like his posse. We are like his friends."

Many of the people who participate in the event wear red and black. Some don elaborate costumes and masks. There also are floats, marching bands, and social crews, who meet up for the day.

Pfeiffer said the parade date usually coincides with the weekend just after the vernal equinox, which is the official start of spring, when days and nights are exactly the same duration.

Over the years, the event has gotten larger. A crowd of about 6,000 is expected.

This year, as they have in the past, the fire performers plan to add some heat.

"It's a unique skill," Pfeiffer said of the parade's flame tamers. "There are people with chains with balls of fire at the end, swinging them all around. That's a pretty cool thing to see."

Bingham, who also has been a fire dancer for a decade, said the specially trained performers will be twirling flaming staffs as well as swinging around flaming balls.

And it's is potentially dangerous.

In a "note to media" event organizers warned: "Please respect the space of the fire performers. Our parade marshals are there to keep you, and them, safe. That's real fire, folks!"

Still, organizers added, there will be people on hand trained to keep people safe.

"It's like you are painting with fire," Bingham said of the fire dancers' performances. "The flames, almost like a comet, leave a tail, and geometric patterns from the fire lingering in the air."

Contact Frank Witsil: 313-222-5022 or fwitsil@freepress.com.

If you go

An estimated 6,000 performers and costumed Detroiters are expected to confront the Nain Rouge as the 10th annual Marche du Nain Rouge parade makes it way through Midtown.

When: Noon, Sunday,

Features: Caribbean Mardi Gras Productions dancers and Gabriel Brass Band

History: In 1701, Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac met a fortune teller, who warned him to beware of the Nain Rouge, the red dwarf who appeared to Cadillac in a dream. The imp was the embodiment of his ambition, anger, pride, envy.