EP 43 Shadow Shorts #3

Shadow Shorts #3 is out now! Recorded at BRC in 2025 participants were challenged to explain BM‘s impact in 5 minutes or less. Meet Angelina to explore how Burning Man fosters profound personal growth. Angelina describes how the event allowed her to reclaim her creative identity through fire dancing and art, providing a necessary emotional balance to her highly analytical professional life. A central theme of the discussion is the shift in perspective from impossibility to empowerment, as she reflects on overcoming the logistical hurdles of traveling from the UK to the desert. Her story illustrates the lasting impact of radical self-expression, showing how the festival’s influence persists through community connections and "decompression" events long after the dust has settled.

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Transcript

Before we start, I would like to ask your help to do two things. First, tell a friend or two who you think might like the show. And second, please rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. The more reviews the show gets, the more likely it will even appear in search results. Thank you, and now on to the show. 

They make the trek out to Burning Man for a week and a day. After a lot of work, oh, there's a lot of play. Party party drama drama drama. b****, b****, b****. Year after year, they come back to scratch that itch. They all say their lives have been changed. After many years, lives have been rearranged. That changes what this show is all about. You'll see the impact. of burning up and out. So sit back, relax, and cancel all your plans. These are the stories about the shadow of the man. 

Hello and welcome to the Shadow of the Man Show. I am your host, That Andy. This is a Shadow Shorts episode recorded at Burning Man 2025. You can tell because of the background sounds. Okay, I have to apologize in advance for the variable sound quality. The microphones are quite sensitive and it picked up some noise from handling and occasionally the speakers allowed the microphone to drift away while speaking. Uh the sound might be more variable than the studio recordings, but the stories are fantastic. Please enjoy.

So, my name's Angelina or Yas my your name? I'm from the UK and this is my fourth year in a row.

Fourth year.

Fourth year in a row. Yeah. I've done all the bad weathers.

Well, last year was pretty nice.

Last year,

24.

Um, I was here for uh Build and Strike. Build and Strike were very tough.

Yeah,

very tough.

So, over four years, what influence has Burning Man had on your life?

So, I started coming here with with a fire conclave and we performed around the man on the Saturday and I've just been more creative. I kind of found my creativity again. I work in a hospital setting. So, um I'm a scientist outside of Burning Man. So, it's all very focused, not very creative. And I kind of found my creative side again. I I was raised by two artists. My parents were a musician and a dancer.

Okay.

And by going into science and felt like I lost that bit of myself. So, it was really nice to really discover it and find my love for art again and yeah, that's that's the impart.

What do you do in medicine? I actually I work in a hospital. I work in a pathology department.

Oh, do you? I'm a lab technician. Oh, really?

Yeah. Well, we call it um biomedical scientist in the UK.

Okay.

So, yeah. Working in biochemistry doing lab tests.

Yeah. Well, art's a good uh combination with science. Well, it's your radical self-expression. I mean, so I mean, you're you're a fire dancer. Is that part of like your realizing your radical self-expression?

Yes.

Yeah. I found out before Burning Man. Um and now I do more of it. I travel more. I go to more festivals. And yeah, and also the other thing um about Burning Man, I've been I was looking up photographs for 15 years on the internet. looking at the art and it was the art that brought me actually um out here. The conclave helped me to come but it was the art that I've always wanted to see and the setup the whole dust with the art. It looked magical and yeah it's still gorgeous and every year it's gorgeous.

So is that what keeps you coming back?

Yes, the art and conflict. Um but every year I would look up where Burning Man was and every year I was like, "Oh, this is impossible.

This is impossible." Every single year.

Logistically pretty hard for England, right? Like Yeah. Yeah.

It's a lot of logistics.

So, um, the first year when I did it, when I got back, I was so empowered because I was like, that was on my impossible bucket list. And now it's not. And now I've done it four years in a row. I'm like, nothing is impossible.

Mhm.

Nothing you can do.

And you just cut by yourself or you have like friends or like people like here that help you to I've got friends. My camp friends are wonderful, wonderful people and they help every year. And this year is the first time that I bought my boyfriend because I wanted to show him

and everything else. So it's very difficult to describe it.

Yeah. Oh. Oh yeah.

And people I find people shut down at a point. They're like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever." I'm like, "No, you don't understand the extent."

Yeah. But I don't know. I mean, remember when I first went to breeding camp and they came back and like every Second and third word in my mouth was just Bernie man. Burn man, Bernie man and and Bernie man and Bernie man. Yeah. And even the first 30 minutes like oh that's interesting. Then it's like okay then it's like all right you can stop talking. It's like if I ever hear the word Bernie man ever again I can't

I've got a little badge on my lab coat at work that says I've got dust in curious places. So every now and again people go what is that? And I try to explain it to them and they're like

back away slowly.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Well here's the sample I drop off. when can you stab that for me please? Like

Wow. And so what what then and you you'll be back again or do you do you do any like regional like events in England or you kind of nowhere or like

We do decompression in London. It's a 24-hour event.

Oh really?

And yes, we've got a nighttime events and then we spit fire and then there's a camp called the flying merkin and they do a day event and they one building and people just bring food and drinks and it's happy hour for 3 hours and you can just have and eat some margaritas and there's loads of dancing.

Yes. And it's and it's just a beautiful event. Loads of bonus. Go there.

Sounds wonderful. Try it out.

Well, thank you very much for the interview.

Oh, thank you so much. It was a great opportunity.

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Thank you for listening to this latest show. We Have to make another one. So, got to go. Don't worry. For next month, we already have one in the can. Very soon, you'll be listening to a new Shadow of the Man.