Burn, Black Rock, Burn: Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock at the Alamo Ritz

After you’ve lived here in Austin for a while, you’re bound to end up at an “off the beaten path” kind of party. The kind where everybody has dreadlocks and wears fuzzy pants or Cabbage Patch head bikinis, where all the hot chicks toss flaming batons around, and someone drives a car covered in Astro-turf or cassette tapes or smurfs or something. You know at that moment that you are among Burners.

Every year the most adventurous (and some say most interesting) people pack their RVs and head out to Black Rock City, Nevada for a week of wild times. It’s called Burning Man—one week a year where 30,000 people come out to the middle of the desert and create their own art and their own community, and do...whatever they want. And at the end, they burn a several-stories-high statue of a man and Black Rock City disappears.

But just when you think you understand—it’s a community of naked artists dancing around on acid, right?—you end up talking to those longhairs and start thinking they're not as weird as you thought they'd be. Or you meet some people at the party that you would never guess were Burners: doctors, lawyers, city officials, architects—normal people, who just like to go out and be part of a truly unique experience. They tell you that there are amazing sculptures, art installations, a spiritual vibe, a bonding that goes on…there’s obviously a lot more to it than you thought. And this weekend, you have a chance to check it out, as your Good Friends at the Alamo Ritz are screening Burning Man: Beyond Black Rock, a documentary pulling back the curtain and showing you just what Burning Man is; and more importantly, what it’s all about.

So if you’re wondering what to do Saturday or Sunday afternoon—can’t stay in any longer but it’s too hot to do anything outside, we’ve been there—maybe head on down to get a taste of what’s about to happen in the middle of Nevada (somewhere much hotter) in just a week or two. Heck, the film might even make a convincing enough case that you’ll be scrambling for tickets. Or, if you’re already down with Black Rock, you can scan the crowd for someone with an RV, and maybe hitch a ride.