Still burning up the dance floor

Posted Thursday, December 06, 2007, 6:43 PM by Lonely Planet

A warehouse-come-trapeze centre in south London has been filled with geodesic domes and psychedelic adornments in honour of America's Burning Man festival; the bar, decorated with fluorescent papier-mâché skulls.

Tonight's 'decompression party' is an attempt to deal with the deflating experience of returning to consensus reality after Burning Man, the pagan rave in Nevada's Black Rock Desert.

In San Francisco, home of the festival's founder and the city with the highest population of 'burners', they even organise a decompression street fair. As well as offering a chance to don cosmic costumes and catch up with friends from the playa (the prehistoric lake bed where the festival takes place), such events are a reminder of Burning Man's idealistic social mission.

Its aim is to positively affect the way people live all year round and, in that spirit, the group Burners without Borders has been providing help to earthquake-struck Peru. The group has raised almost US$3000 and sent a disaster relief carpenter to lead construction projects in Pisco.

Community spirit is obvious in the organisation of tonight's party. Requests for assistance fill online forums - from a loan of a kipper tie to crash space for burners coming from other parts of Europe. People spend days turning the industrial unit into an ultraviolet wonderland, and stay to clear the floor of glowsticks at the end of the all-nighter.

The accents heard above the pounding music reflect the worldwide community of burners. I speak to a Parisian Euroburner, one of about 30 French folk at the knees-up, and to the landlord of the playa's very own English pub. He's already planning for next year's Burning Man, due to take place around Labor Day (September 1). No wonder - it requires some serious logistics to turn a patch of desert into an event with the global, year-round reverberations on display tonight.

- James Bainbridge went to Burning Man researching for A Year of Festivals, out next year; you can read his blog from the festival here.

Labels: Burning Man, Europe, Festivals and events, The Americas

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