Make the Most of Your Time on Earth 4 by Rough Guides

Author:Rough Guides
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Travel, General
Publisher: APA
Published: 2019-06-19T15:27:43+00:00

Dreamstime

511 | Grazing with the black sheep at Burning Man

NEVADA Picture a nudist miniature golf course, an advanced pole-dancing workshop and a bunch of neon-painted bodies glowing in the night, and you may be getting close to imagining what Burning Man is all about. Every year during the last week of August, several thousand digerati geeks, pyrotechnic maniacs, death-guild Goths, crusty hippies and too-hip yuppies descend on a prehistoric dry lakebed in the Nevada Desert to build a temporary autonomous “city” – one that rivals some of Nevada’s largest in size and leaves no trace when it disbands. Known as Black Rock City, it’s not the ideal place to consume a heady cocktail of alcohol and drugs – temperatures are scorching – but the thousands of anarchists, deviants, techno-heads, trance-dancers and freakish performance artists who arrive here from all over the world give it their best shot.

Art and interactivity are at the very core of the Burning Man ethos. Basically, this is the most survivalist, futuristic and utterly surreal show on Earth, where the strangest part of your alter ego reigns supreme. Faceless Pythia give advice in oracle booths, flying zebras circle, caged men in ape suits pounce and motorized lobster cars tool about. Some of Burning Man’s participants see the event as a social experiment and others a total free-for-all. But the main goal is the same: you’re there to participate, not observe. Burning Man allows all the black sheep of the world to graze together, so the more experiential art you share, gifts you give, bizarre costumes you wear or free services you provide, the better.

The highlight of the week is the burning of a 50ft-tall effigy of a man, built from wood and neon and stuffed with fireworks. After all the laser-filled skies, electroluminescent wired bodysuits and fire-breathing mechanical dragons that illuminate the skies every evening for the rest of the week, it’s almost an anticlimax, but it’s still certainly a sight to behold. If you fancy making a smaller-scale statement, you can choose whatever alter ego or fantasy you desire. Just pack your (animal-friendly) non-feathered boas, body paint and imagination, and you’re all set.

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