Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man (review)

Lee Gilmore’s Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man primes its readers well to understand the Burning Man Festival in its entirety by critically examining the event’s rituals and participants’ experiences of spirituality, defined in separation from or polar opposition to religion. Gilmore approaches this topic from the overlapping perspectives of participant and researcher. In addition to her primary topic, she provides a satisfying event history seasoned with her own personal experiences. Photographs taken by Gilmore, her friends and family, supplement the text, in addition to a DVD, a visual companion that provides readers with a mediated experience of Black Rock City (BRC).

Burners (a colloquial name for participants) encourage experience of the festival for any critical understanding. Gilmore presupposes no knowledge of the festival, however; the book begins with a concise, nuanced, detailed section that helps the reader begin to grasp the key facets of the festival. What began in 1986 as a gathering on Baker Beach, stewarded by founder Larry Harvey, has now grown into an annual event of over fifty-thousand burners who gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to inhabit Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance. They depart one week later, leaving no trace. Ten principles guide this gathering—radical inclusion, gifting, decommodification, radical self-reliance, radical self-expression, communal effort, civic responsibility, leaving no trace, participation, and immediacy—the annual one. Gilmore’s visually rich writing evokes the quality of a Geertzian “thick description,” which captures the multi-faceted nature of the event.

Gilmore first attended Burning Man in 1996 and has witnessed the festival change and grow in both size and scale. The time she has spent as a member of the burner community has a clear impact on the format of the book as well as the weight given to particular rituals and activities. As a fellow burner and researcher, I offer review—my perspective on this subject also influenced by my personal experiences, including participation with staff volunteer groups. My experiences, begun in 2008, naturally diverge in a number of ways from that of Gilmore, not least of which in disciplinary view. Gilmore’s perspective grows out of religious studies and anthropological concerns, in some contrast—though overlap—with my discipline of sociology. Despite these differences, our research interests and scholarly concerns overlap with Burning Man issues of identity transformation, alternative spaces, ritual and spirituality.

As a long time participant, Gilmore notes the common trope of seasoned burners that “the event isn’t what it used to be.” This discussion of long time attendance and loss of meaning is an important one, not only for its similarity to established religious community life, but also because it addresses key contentions made by returning and veteran participants. Specifically, when an event/ritual/act has a transcendent quality, it is surprising if feelings of this nature are maintained in the same intensity over time. Since burners typically return to the event year after year, sights that shock newcomers may seem ordinary to returning participants.

Of particular interest, Gilmore outlines key controversial moments in the contested early history of the event. The account of the festival’s inception is accompanied by a detailed examination of the festival’s titular ritual in conjunction with similar rituals that involve burning an effigy—i.e. Burning Man, a 40-foot high icon constructed from wood, metal and neon whose form arises and speaks “eloquently of ritual, sacrifice, and homage” (to use the words of Louis Brill) or the Temple, to mention a couple. Gilmore’s discussion of the journey to and from BRC, in the fourth chapter “Desert Pilgrimage,” strikingly illustrates spiritual transformation in conjunction with a journey to a place of special meaning. This chapter focuses on the central aspects of the BRC community that link participants to one another and motivate them to return each year. Movement is a key focus...