The First New Zealand Regional Burn: The Culmination of 10 Years as a Kiwi Burner
by Mark Stirling
The first night of 2004 was a very special one for the remote New Zealand
regional outpost of Burning Man. New Zealand Regional Mark Stirling (New
Zealand Regional) staged the first-ever Burning Man regional
event in the country, burning a 12 ft high homebuilt wooden man at the
Visionz festival in Golden Bay, NZ. The event attracted about 300 to 400
participants who accompanied Mark in a procession of drumming, dancing
and fire juggling to the site of the man in a rich green farm paddock
beside the sea. The event was met with great enthusiasm from the participants,
who had either heard of Burning Man previously, had seen the various pamphlets
and posters around the festival (prepared by Andie Grace and her team),
or had just decided to join in on the fun. Mark had the expressed pleasure
of lighting the man and watch it burn to a crescendo of drumming, dancing
and cheering. To Mark, this represented the culmination of 10 years involvement
with and passion for Burning Man thus far.
Mark’s lengthy association with Burning Man (7 burns to his name)
began while he was living in Reno, Nevada doing his Ph.D. in the ‘90s.
He and his partner Jane discovered Burning Man by accident in ’94
while on a camping trip in the Black Rock Desert. Burning Man immediately
took hold, and he simply had to return again and again and again, even
after moving back to New Zealand in the late ‘90s. He even made
the trip with his baby son on one occasion. He logically nominated himself
as the New Zealand Regional, and was interviewed and installed in the
role.
After a few years of procrastination, Mark decided to stage the first
regional burn in New Zealand in late 2003. Because of the difficulty of
achieving “critical mass” at a regional event in a country
where few have actually attended Burning Man, chose the Visionz festival
as the most appropriate venue for the event, the festival having a similar
emphasis on Burning Man-type philosophies such as “leave no trace”
and subsistence culture. Discussions with both Burning Man and Visionz
organisers went smoothly, giving him the go-ahead to hastily concoct a
man out of wooden offcuts from his basement over a period of a few evenings.
The overall success of the inaugural New Zealand regional event means
that Mark will have more confidence to stage a bigger burn at Visionz
next year, and build substantially on his 2003 experience. Despite the
small number of people in New Zealand who have actually made the trek
to the Black Rock Desert (they number less than five), New Zealanders
are obviously readily embracing the concept and spectacle of Burning Man,
much like Mark did back in 1994. The word and the vibe of Burning Man
is out in Kiwiland!
