Juan and Lotte meet at Villa Aurora, the former home of the writer Lion Feuchtwanger in southern California. Far from home, routine and family ties, they want to explore their relationship, which soon turns out to be intense and complicated. They will embark on various journeys together across the Arizona desert and along the Pacific coast in a friend's old Chevrolet. She likes birds and poetry; he likes taking photos of her next to cacti. Their respective pasts, the people and events that marked their lives before they met, will come to the surface during these expeditions. The roads that will take them to old abandoned mission churches, that connect Juan with his childhood in Mallorca, will also lead them to the darkest and most intimate elements of the link that joins them. "The Dancing Flame" is the story of a love affair looking for a place out in the open to unfold and mature.