Burning Man truly is a participatory gathering. Unlike other festivals, every single person is encouraged to "do something" to express his or her creativity. People who only gawk and gape are discouraged. For example, Red, a free-form musician from Palo Alto, Calif., exhibited her own unique talents by playing her tuba while riding a unicycle up and down the ancient dry lake bed. Other "Black Rock citizens" celebrate their individuality through wild performance art, walking poetry, song, drumming, theater, dance, painting, sculpting, even fire eating. Alongside dedicated artists, an army of carpenters, mechanics, and metalsmiths, together with their friends and associates, team up to build huge art installations in the desert. Residents of this temporary city exert tremendous effort designing, transporting, and then building their artworks and "theme" camps on the playa. The 2011 Burning Man art theme is "Rites of Passage."
This huge, dry lake is in northwestern Nevada, near the little town of Gerlach, off State Highway 447. It's absolutely in the middle of nowhere. But every year, thousands of pilgrims return to the Black Rock Desert for Burning Man. A 50-foot-tall wooden "man" is erected in the center of the desert, with theme camps and art installations extending outward in ever-widening concentric circles. At the conclusion of the weeklong festivities, the "man" in the center of Burning Man is set on fire.
Burning Man began in 1986 as a small, improvised event of only 20 people at Baker Beach in San Francisco. Cofounder Larry Harvey designed the first man, and then burned it, in honor of the summer solstice. It has since evolved into a major annual happening, expected to draw 48,000 participants when it begins Aug. 29. What started as a small, local phenomenon has blossomed into a giant, worldwide event with collaborators from around the globe.
