The Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture
University of South Australia (AU)
Steven T. Jones’ book is in many ways summed up by the signs marking the entry to the festival site identified by Larry Harvey—event founder and general king pin—as his favourite: “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in Black Rock City goes everywhere” (175). The Tribes of Burning Man follows Steven Jones (aka. playa name Scribe) own personal journey on and off the playa from around 2004–2010 as a central participant in San Francisco’s contemporary counter-culture. As a journalist and editor for the local San Francisco Bay Guardian, this book grows out of being a voice not so much for but from the burner community. Jones offers us excellent coverage of the event’s history, such as the growing pains around the “Ten Principles” and other significant changes in the level of organisation underpinning the event following the death of a burner in 2004. However rather than being a dry chronological narrative, The Tribes of Burning Man emerges contextually embedded in both a rich discussion of contemporary debates around the event’s nature and future and even richer accounts of Scribe’s own immersions in the world of Burning Man.
Although the vaguely Maffesolian metaphor of the “tribe” is tinged at times with elements of tribe quatraditional peoples—at least when it comes to the “feather and leather” (14) look popular on the playa—Jones offers a counter-perspective to critiques of Burning Man. Critiques, such as that offered by noted US cyberlibertarian and long-time burner John Perry Barlow, who called for a boycott of the event, rejecting it for “leeching” the creative and political energies of the community (23). However, in Jones’ book, Burning Man is clearly framed as more than a “weekend warrior” experience offering up a Bakhtinian pressure valve release of resistant energies. Rather in its focus on the active and lively San Francisco scene and its year-round preparation, Jones explores how the annual festival on the playa is for many burners simply the culmination and focal point which recharges batteries for an all consuming commitment to a different way of being in the world. Here we see how the sometimes life-changing epiphanies experienced on the playa have been turned by some participants into beyond-the-event personal missions and where the renewal of the Temporary Autonomous Zone (TAZ) experience afforded by the time of the playa is transmuted into bigger and wider commitments to collective organisation and social movements. Jones particularly emphasises the work of Burners Without Borders, formed in 2005 when groups of burners went straight from Nevada to Mississippi to help clean up after Hurricane Katrina. This spin-off collective has become for some a long-term commitment to bring the skills borne of planning, building, improvising and breaking down a city in the desert, to relief efforts. Jones also discusses Black Rock Solar which installs solar panels for community groups at a highly subsidised cost enabled by volunteer labour.
The art versus rave dichotomy which seems to underpin much of what’s been written on Burning Man is manifest here; not surprising given the “barely concealed hostility of Larry and the Borg” (27) to dance camps. However, Dancecult readers will be happy to hear that this book, while open—as a good journalist should be—to all sides of the debate, is written by an enthusiastic dance tribe central player. In this way, the book is a refreshing counter-point to Bowditch’s (2010) more anti-rave and more scholarly-focused book On the Edge of Utopia. As a committed raver and member of those tribes behind the playa’s most iconic rave camps (e.g. Opulent Temple), Jones instead offers a raver’s perspective on the playa experience, not to mention the gossip on which big name DJs are divas versus those who really get Burning Man and thrive on its energy. Jones is also keen to put on record the important off-playa fundraising role played by the tribes in raising money to fund the on-playa art. A particular focus too is Jones’ own embedded journalism or participant observations as a member of the Flaming Lotus Girls; this provides valuable insight on the art funding structures facilitated by Burning Man. The rave versus the rest lines in the dust are here explored given they remain at the heart of key debates and factionalism in the event’s recent organisational history, as played out among community leaders in San Francisco during the period Jones spent most closely researching this book (129).
The particular strength and value of The Tribes of Burning Man lies in its insider point of view which offers an open account of the world of the festival not only on the playa but also during the annual life cycle of preparations, fund-raising, planning, design, building, transport, not to mention organisational and scene politics and egos, which, after all, are the behind the scenes’ life and soul of any event on this scale.
Bowditch, Rachel. 2010. On the Edge of Utopia: Performance and Ritual at Burning Man. London, New York and Calcutta: Seagull Books.