Before the BurnBefore the Burn
Before the burn there is usually a ceremony. In past years that got
mucked up by the premature firing of the man. No problem this year.
The crowd gathers in a circle at the L2K ring and watches the fire dancers
and flamethrowers, and then the Burn begins
This time we did a "Save the Man" protest, which I thought of at the
last minute. We made up a bunch of protest signs reading:
- Save the Man (2)
- End the Burning
- The Man Loves You
- Spare the Air, Spare the Man
- Burn him, you burn yourself
K. got in our elwire suit which was designed to match the neon pattern of
last year's man. She was a literal walking Burning Man, if no longer in
the right colour. She carried a sign.
When we got there we found a few (but surprisingly few) willing to march
with us, but we did find some and did our march around the circle.
My goal was to help turn the audience of spectators into participants.
By chanting "save the man" we got many of the audience to become highly
engaged in disagreeing with us, shouting "no, burn him!" back to us
with glee.
A lot of people were irony impaired, and didn't get that it was a joke.
Some got visible angry that we would even suggest it, and not in fun.
We joined up with another guy who was thrilled to see us because he had
hoped to arrange such a march but didn't get around to doing it.
In future, I would love to make this a regular event, and even arrange
to march around the inside of the circle and get the crowd really fired
up to burn the man. Even though it's an illusion, making the illusion of
decision helps turn people into participants instead of spectators.
More on the post-burn march in the next page.
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Before the burn, the fire dancers perform their ceremony. The moon rises behind them.
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Man, moon, and some of the city and crows in background.
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Fire dancer spins her fire
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Fire jugglers
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Faster shot of fire jugglers
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Slower shot of fire jugglers
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Flame throwers shoot in the air before the burn.
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Full on flame throwers
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Fire dancer spins fire on a rope
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Array of fire spinners
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More fire spinners and the Man
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