The News
The art of the bonfire: Canadians have become 'integral' to Burning Man, the
yearly desert jamboree
The Province
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Page: B3
Section: Unwind
Byline: Mike Roberts
Column: Mike Roberts
Source: The Province
On a vast, barren expanse of corrosive, sunbaked clay, under brutal winds
and broiling temperatures, they gather each summer on the playa of Nevada's
Black Rock Desert for an artistic experiment considered unique and
the most inspired happening on the planet.
Burning Man draws over 35,000 participants, many thousands of them from
Canada. For eight days, a makeshift city of free-thinking adventurers
blossoms on the stark, unforgiving hardpan. It's a festival of the
outrageous, a carnival of the bizarre and a test of human endurance
culminating in the torching of the 20-metre-tall wooden stickman that gives
the event its name.
And when it's all over, the participants -- or Burners as they're called --
literally scrub Black Rock City from the face of the earth, leaving without
a trace of ever having been there.
Vancouver sculptor Bruce Voyce, "a two-time Burner," says it's a
life-altering, life-affirming experience that those who go never forget.
"It's a pretty crazy, bizarre environment," says Voyce. "But Burning Man is
not for everyone -- it's also about radical self-sufficiency . . . you pack
in everything, including all your food and water."
Wearing goggles and dust masks, "imagineers" in blue or silver body paint
erect incredible art installations of mind-warping scale and complexity. A
man in a suit made of light sticks may drift by, or a woman in a gas mask
twirling a parasol. "Mutated" bikes and vehicles cruise about, done up like
dragons or shark fins. Everyone you encounter is weirder than the next on
the otherworldly landscape of the playa. When darkness falls, the desert
lights up in a kaleidoscopic display of neon, machine sparks and fire.
It's a world of extremes, says Voyce, with daytime temperatures hovering
around 45 degrees followed by brutally cold nights. And anything not
staked and tethered to the prehistoric lake bed is likely to be whipped away
with the 120 km/h dust storms that create "white-outs" as suddenly as they
vanish.
Money is worthless in Black Rock City, which operates exclusively on an
exchange system of "gifting" -- an application of body glitter for a back
rub, say, or a can of propane for a handful of rebar stakes.
And there are no headlining acts or corporate sponsorship. It's a community
built and run by its participants, a wonderland city severed from the rules
and restrictions of structured society.
"In reality, it is a crucible of creativity and participation that most
people would find a little too disorientating," says Voyce. "The unexpected
is perpetually around the corner."
Voyce, a member of Burning Man Vancouver (burningvancouver.org), a Burning
Man "regional" that boasts just over 1,000 registered members, couldn't
attend this year's festival, which began Monday and ends tomorrow.
He's been busy, instead, installing his latest work at Vancouver's VanDusen
Botanical Garden as part of the park's Sculptors in the Garden series.
"My friends have all gone," he says. "They're on their way!"
The festival, now in its 21st year, is increasingly popular with Canadians,
says Voyce.
"You meet a lot of Canadians at Burning Man, twice as many as you'd expect
given our comparative population," he says. "There's nothing like it in
Canada."
Burning Man media-team member BoPeep says while she can't provide numbers,
she has noticed a significant increase in the number of Canadian attendees.
"Canadians are very welcome at the event, and given that there are so many
of them these days, they have become integral," she adds.
"Every year, more and more Canadians travel to Black Rock City," according
to Canadian Burning Man chronicler Blackstrap Jack.
"The theories are many -- kinship with dust, higher national creativity
average, the promise of warmth," adds Jack, who recommends thinking "about
waiting 'til you're in Washington to dye your hair blue" and watching
Midnight Express before you pack.
Voyce says Vancouver Burners view the 20-hour drive to the Black Rock Desert
as a post-modern pilgrimage.
"Some people go just for the weekend, others make a holiday of it and camp
down the coast," he says. "Groups form long in advance over the Internet
from all over and convene in 'theme camps' to collaborate on projects.
"People go to extreme effort just to do something different," says Voyce,
who reckons Flaming Enema Man, a naked fellow with a contraption on his back
featuring a fireball whirling through clear, twisted pipes, was the weirdest
thing he's seen on the playa.
Black Rock City itself is a semicircular town of tents, RVs, trailers and
art works radiating out from the Burning Man on the cracked canvas of the
playa. Taking shape last week was the spectacular Shape of the Future wooden
topographic structure made of 160 kilometres of two-by-fours held together
with nothing but nails.
It will go up in a blaze of glory with the Burning Man this weekend.
For all of its colourful pageantry and lofty ideals, reality does intrude on
the Burning Man utopia. While fostering "radical self-expression," event
organizers have also created an exhaustive list of restrictions.
And the volunteer "Black Rock Rangers," along with police agencies
co-ordinated by the Bureau of Land Management -- which temporarily leases
the playa to Burning Man -- patrol the event, enforcing the laws of the
state and nation.
"Our actions are the same here as they would be in any city. If an officer
sees someone doing something illegal, he will take the appropriate steps,"
says Jamie Thompson of the BLM.
Last year, 114 Burners were arrested on drug charges, and more than 1,500
participants received medical treatment for drug overdoses disguised as
"heat prostration." Nearly 40 of those cases required evacuation via air to
hospitals in Reno.
And this year, medics failed to resuscitate a man in his early 40s who died
after collapsing at a campsite Tuesday. The Pershing County Sheriff's Office
says it appears he died of natural causes.
Critics, of course, have described the mind-altering happening as a
hedonistic playground of drugs and sex, a Sodom and Gomorrah redux.
Voyce chuckles at the naysayers.
"People think it's a big orgy, but the elements just aren't conducive to
getting that cozy," he says. "There's a lot of people looking out for other
people. You see people laying down and other people taking care of them."
Asked if he'll make the pilgrimage to the playa next year, the local Burner
says without a doubt.
yearly desert jamboree
The Province
Sunday, September 3, 2006
Page: B3
Section: Unwind
Byline: Mike Roberts
Column: Mike Roberts
Source: The Province
On a vast, barren expanse of corrosive, sunbaked clay, under brutal winds
and broiling temperatures, they gather each summer on the playa of Nevada's
Black Rock Desert for an artistic experiment considered unique and
the most inspired happening on the planet.
Burning Man draws over 35,000 participants, many thousands of them from
Canada. For eight days, a makeshift city of free-thinking adventurers
blossoms on the stark, unforgiving hardpan. It's a festival of the
outrageous, a carnival of the bizarre and a test of human endurance
culminating in the torching of the 20-metre-tall wooden stickman that gives
the event its name.
And when it's all over, the participants -- or Burners as they're called --
literally scrub Black Rock City from the face of the earth, leaving without
a trace of ever having been there.
Vancouver sculptor Bruce Voyce, "a two-time Burner," says it's a
life-altering, life-affirming experience that those who go never forget.
"It's a pretty crazy, bizarre environment," says Voyce. "But Burning Man is
not for everyone -- it's also about radical self-sufficiency . . . you pack
in everything, including all your food and water."
Wearing goggles and dust masks, "imagineers" in blue or silver body paint
erect incredible art installations of mind-warping scale and complexity. A
man in a suit made of light sticks may drift by, or a woman in a gas mask
twirling a parasol. "Mutated" bikes and vehicles cruise about, done up like
dragons or shark fins. Everyone you encounter is weirder than the next on
the otherworldly landscape of the playa. When darkness falls, the desert
lights up in a kaleidoscopic display of neon, machine sparks and fire.
It's a world of extremes, says Voyce, with daytime temperatures hovering
around 45 degrees followed by brutally cold nights. And anything not
staked and tethered to the prehistoric lake bed is likely to be whipped away
with the 120 km/h dust storms that create "white-outs" as suddenly as they
vanish.
Money is worthless in Black Rock City, which operates exclusively on an
exchange system of "gifting" -- an application of body glitter for a back
rub, say, or a can of propane for a handful of rebar stakes.
And there are no headlining acts or corporate sponsorship. It's a community
built and run by its participants, a wonderland city severed from the rules
and restrictions of structured society.
"In reality, it is a crucible of creativity and participation that most
people would find a little too disorientating," says Voyce. "The unexpected
is perpetually around the corner."
Voyce, a member of Burning Man Vancouver (burningvancouver.org), a Burning
Man "regional" that boasts just over 1,000 registered members, couldn't
attend this year's festival, which began Monday and ends tomorrow.
He's been busy, instead, installing his latest work at Vancouver's VanDusen
Botanical Garden as part of the park's Sculptors in the Garden series.
"My friends have all gone," he says. "They're on their way!"
The festival, now in its 21st year, is increasingly popular with Canadians,
says Voyce.
"You meet a lot of Canadians at Burning Man, twice as many as you'd expect
given our comparative population," he says. "There's nothing like it in
Canada."
Burning Man media-team member BoPeep says while she can't provide numbers,
she has noticed a significant increase in the number of Canadian attendees.
"Canadians are very welcome at the event, and given that there are so many
of them these days, they have become integral," she adds.
"Every year, more and more Canadians travel to Black Rock City," according
to Canadian Burning Man chronicler Blackstrap Jack.
"The theories are many -- kinship with dust, higher national creativity
average, the promise of warmth," adds Jack, who recommends thinking "about
waiting 'til you're in Washington to dye your hair blue" and watching
Midnight Express before you pack.
Voyce says Vancouver Burners view the 20-hour drive to the Black Rock Desert
as a post-modern pilgrimage.
"Some people go just for the weekend, others make a holiday of it and camp
down the coast," he says. "Groups form long in advance over the Internet
from all over and convene in 'theme camps' to collaborate on projects.
"People go to extreme effort just to do something different," says Voyce,
who reckons Flaming Enema Man, a naked fellow with a contraption on his back
featuring a fireball whirling through clear, twisted pipes, was the weirdest
thing he's seen on the playa.
Black Rock City itself is a semicircular town of tents, RVs, trailers and
art works radiating out from the Burning Man on the cracked canvas of the
playa. Taking shape last week was the spectacular Shape of the Future wooden
topographic structure made of 160 kilometres of two-by-fours held together
with nothing but nails.
It will go up in a blaze of glory with the Burning Man this weekend.
For all of its colourful pageantry and lofty ideals, reality does intrude on
the Burning Man utopia. While fostering "radical self-expression," event
organizers have also created an exhaustive list of restrictions.
And the volunteer "Black Rock Rangers," along with police agencies
co-ordinated by the Bureau of Land Management -- which temporarily leases
the playa to Burning Man -- patrol the event, enforcing the laws of the
state and nation.
"Our actions are the same here as they would be in any city. If an officer
sees someone doing something illegal, he will take the appropriate steps,"
says Jamie Thompson of the BLM.
Last year, 114 Burners were arrested on drug charges, and more than 1,500
participants received medical treatment for drug overdoses disguised as
"heat prostration." Nearly 40 of those cases required evacuation via air to
hospitals in Reno.
And this year, medics failed to resuscitate a man in his early 40s who died
after collapsing at a campsite Tuesday. The Pershing County Sheriff's Office
says it appears he died of natural causes.
Critics, of course, have described the mind-altering happening as a
hedonistic playground of drugs and sex, a Sodom and Gomorrah redux.
Voyce chuckles at the naysayers.
"People think it's a big orgy, but the elements just aren't conducive to
getting that cozy," he says. "There's a lot of people looking out for other
people. You see people laying down and other people taking care of them."
Asked if he'll make the pilgrimage to the playa next year, the local Burner
says without a doubt.
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