The Burning Man festival attracts thousands each year for a six-day experiment in self-expression and “radical self-reliance.” Many San Diegans, including UCSD students, make the trek to Black Rock City, Nev., to participate. One student shares her own experience.
Just be an extrovert,” the self-proclaimed Uncle Ira said at the gate. Sweat was beginning to bore holes through his bright pink face paint as he adjusted his top hat. “Ask questions, get involved, and this place will change your life,” he said. This was August 28, the first of six days in the event known as Burning Man.
To the uninitiated, Burning Man probably doesn’t sound like an event that should be taken seriously. Camping on an ancient lakebed in the middle of Nevada desert in order to burn a giant stick figure? The idea is guaranteed to confuse nonburners. “So it’s some kind of effigy orgy?” asked Eleanor Roosevelt College senior Andi Barton. Barton had a bit of a problem wrapping her head around the idea at first, just as many others do.
But while it may seem like an alien idea to some, every year over 25,000 people gather on a geographical flatbed 100 miles north of Reno, Nev. The location is known as the playa, and the thousands gather to join an experiment in community and “radical self-expression,” as they call it.
Burning Man started in 1986 as a summer solstice celebration that Larry Harvey thought up to get over a bad breakup. But when he and his friend Jerry James started burning the 8-foot-tall figure on a beach in San Francisco, the rest of the beachgoers came running to watch.
A community was born, and the experience was so profound that they decided to repeat it the following year. Over the years, as the man grew taller and more intricate, so did the community.
In 1990, it finally attracted the attention of the local authorities, who decided to enforce the rules against limited beach burns of a three-by-three-foot campfire. Needless to say, the now four-story-tall man did not meet these requirements. A change of venue was needed.
It was found in the wind-blown flatbed of a northern Nevada mountain range, where the event still occurs to this day. What started as a simple annual beach party has grown into a thriving village with infrastructure, built weeks before the actual event and torn down once it is over. Roads, street signs, power lines and communication towers appear and disappear in this same spot each year, just like the camps and participants.
People come from all corners of the globe, but most attendees are from the historic birthplace of the man, California. San Diego itself contributes a large number of the habitual citizens. Communities like SDburners.tribe.net and [email protected] register over 750 and 980 users respectively, while groups like Fuegodiego try to keep the spirit of Burning Man alive 365 days a year. They put on events like Fuego de los Muertos, which takes place an hour east of San Diego on Oct. 20-23.
Walking into the Burning Man community was much like walking onto the set of some Mad Max type of post apocalyptic movie. Shelters against the blazing sun rose haphazardly out of the dust. Toward the outside they were mostly tarps and RVs, but as one approached the center, they became works of art. Caves of PVC and cloth lay alongside two-story structures boasting fully furnished lounges while geodesic domes and abstract pirate ships competed for the best trampoline.
Although clothing seemed to be the exception rather than the rule, some made their outfits as elaborate as the theme camps. There was everything from characters in full Flintstone regalia riding a giant wheeled dinosaur to bejeweled roller disco queens. Cycling was the primary mode of transportation for most members, but handmade vehicles of every shape and size lumbered down the packed earth streets, keeping to the five miles per hour speed limit.
This year was Muir College freshman JR Bachman’s first time attending the event. Although he came on a spur of the moment decision, he still managed to find a place in two theme camps, the Red Light District (a theme camp consisting of around 80 people from San Diego and Los Angeles, a group that includes several members of the UCSD community) and the Pizza Sluts. The Pizza Sluts contributed to the community by bringing solar-powered ovens in which they made pizzas and then delivered them via bicycle to a dart-chosen spot on the map. Their motto? “We don’t take orders; we give them,” and, “If you don’t like the pizza, eat me.”
When asked what struck Bachman most about the Burning Man experience he said, “You could wear, say and do just about anything — as long as it isn’t hateful — and nobody would even think about judging you for it, only complimenting you.”
But as noisy and interesting as it was during the day, it was at night that Burning Man really came alive. Opposite the semi-circle of camps, far across an empty expanse of sand, stood the reason everyone was there: the man. Nearly four stories tall, at night he stood illuminated by rings of neon blue while a sea of color swam before him.
An astonishingly large number of lights blazed at night. Mind-numbingly huge contraptions blared music while attendees danced beneath strobe lights and disco balls, and theme camps came alive with laser light shows and pyrotechnic displays. The playa itself was dotted with large-scale art displays, many of which came alive after dark for the enjoyment of glow stick-decorated participants.
This was also Eleanor Roosevelt College senior Angela Feng’s first year at Burning Man, and she had the time of her life. “It’s amazing,” she said. “Everyone here is open and free. You have conversations here that you would never have anywhere else.”
That, more than anything else, was what made wandering the playa after dark most interesting. You realize that it’s not the things that make this experience what it is — it’s the attitude. The event is so far from the real world, both literally and figuratively, that just casually attending it is out of the question. The cost of it all, combined with the fact that there is no existing structure and that everything (food, furniture, transportation, shelter) must be carried into and away from the event, means that only people who are truly committed to the ideals of Burning Man actually attend. Black Rock City is a living community every year, albeit temporarily, because its citizens make it so. They volunteer, they beautify and they help those around them. If you are open enough and extroverted enough, they’ll welcome you in, no questions asked.
And at the end of the week, when the man finally burns with all due ceremony (and a quite impressive firework display), you sit there and watch not as a lonely face in the center of the crowd, but as a part of that community.
And it was there that you finally understand the rest of what the greeters told you upon entering:
This is Black Rock City, welcome home.