black tie cocktail party? business suits and briefcases? ... i think those are some hilarious ideas
-imagine a bunch of people with briefcases (which hold soaked tools) walk out, pop their suitcases and get going

rodeo clowns and flaming bulls?
-how about flaming lasso?

pyramids, tumbling, acro, (not that I can currently do any of these things)
-cheerleaders sounds sick ... i love it ... and its amazing how much we can learn in a few months with some good practice

how much does flash paper get used?
maybe we should look at all of the things they expect, and just do the total opposite?
that can totally defy all expectations and be perfect
of course it can be to far off and totally suck ha ha

i love the idea of a west side story dance off-- maybe leather clad fetishist fire folks vs. cirque du soliel style "artistic" fire?

can you imagine us all dressed as coyboys & girls? i freakin' love it! do you think the drummers could hang with that theme?

really, tho, i'm looking for more of the "perception of danger, really really tight choreography" ideas...this is where we need to go- if we start soon, we will kick some flaming butt by the time we get to the playa.

i'm also assuming we'd have numerous shows on the playa besides the burn to show off our stuff...

-shireen

Michelle, I love you! You're brilliant!

That said, I'd love to be able to bring some of my non-fire skills out this year and make them with-fire skills... (Michelle and I had talked about trying to do an ATS belly dance thing w/ fire fans, but IMHO, that's a start of the show idea...) I can still do some basic tumbling. It's been years since I was part of a pyramid, but I could be down for that as well.

I love the idea of a west side story style dance off. And the business suits/briefcases idea is totally hilarious! We could combine the two ideas... Senate vs. House of Reps.? That might be a bit too esoteric...

as great as it would be to create some kind of americana farce political statement i think that one thing many people are overlooking is the positive side of the "american dream" theme.
i think more of the intention for this year is to look at our country in the whole spectrum of light and dark. to confront the things that we have helped create in this society and look into ourselves and decide how we want to change this. what we as individuals can do to actually make change in the system.
instead of just making fun of the icons of america that we so much despise why not acknowlede some american icons that have made change and inspire us. i think those of us that despise so much of our country often forget some of the amazing expression that has been created on american soil. jazz for example, blues , burningman.
right now in the world there is this strange duality of people hating our country but also being completly obsessed with our culture. we have a massive influence in the world with the trends and pop culture we create. i think we are living in an exciting time to shitft paradigms and start really forming our society into something that we can actually relate to as the american dream. the traditional sense of the american dream hasn't existed for a while but we do live in a land of opportunity and from that we do have the freedom to create a life that we belive is worth living.
we all come out to the playa to experiance how we would like to live for one week out of the year then we go back to our jobs our lives and once in a while those nostalgic burningman memories seep in and help us through our day. i dont know what it is or how it is going to be created but thats why we are all here together to build the new dream we are already just starting to live.
i know alot of people are really dissapointed about this years theme because they dont want to be bombarded with red white and blue and overwhelming amounts of anti political/ corporate satire.
i think there is room for all this within a performance, humor ,satire ,inspiration sick new tricks daring acrobatics and new begginings.
if anyone hasn't read the statement for this years theme on the burningman website i strongly encourage you to
burningman.com/art_of_bur..._theme.html