EP 49 Shadow Shorts #5

Shadow Shorts #5 is out now! Recorded at BRC in 2025 participants were challenged to explain BM‘s impact in 5 minutes or less. Meet Sigardona, a Russian-born Californian who progressed from a curious first-time attendee to a camp leader managing a unique underwater photography installation. Their conversation highlights the deep social bonds formed through shared adversity and the way the "playa" inspires participants to think outside the box in their daily lives. His story explains the lasting impact of the community by showing how the festival's creative spirit extends into year-round activities and regional connections.

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Transcript

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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 Bernie 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.

My name is Sigardona. I live in Pleasant. California but originally from Russia. I've been burn uh second time this year and uh

and what brings you back? Why did you come back?

I think first time it brought me here curiosity and the second time also curiosity that brought me back. It's just uh was very unusual experience compared to what I had in the past and ability to uh now participate as one of the camp leads. was uh something I wanted to try that challenge.

When you came last year, did you come just by yourself or did you come with a group of people?

I came as a part of a camp and this year coming as a part of the same camp.

So has it inspired you to to like you said take up the mantle of like leadership and participate?

Yeah, like two other campies basically said are you willing to be the third one and I thought wow yeah I am.

And so uh what are you doing here at this camp pavilion.

Uh we are doing the event called PLA underwater photography. So we have full diving gear and you really will be underwater when you come for our event and it's going to be very unique experience. If you're a diver you will be able to say I only I not only dived in different seas but I also dive here on fire.

Ah so do you have any like a diver just come with their little books and like you can fill out like all of the you know the information like

we haven't done it yet that way but maybe something for next year's

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like you dove down to like 80 ft and you've used how many like you've been down for so long and

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean good good point.

And also you know some places when you go dive don't they have like a stamp or something like

Yeah. That that that's something to think about

for sure. Yeah. I mean one part when you come to Bernie man So the inspiration

right absolutely

and then it's like you take home and then you you think and

the next year

right absolutely yeah inspiration and uh different way of looking at things uh you know something which is uh very common nowadays saying that think outside of box here is think outside of one box second box third box

there is no box

there is no box well how have like since you went last year. I mean, how has it impacted your life like outside of

I get a few new friends and uh you know and uh that was a great thing and uh something which you you saw people in uh difficult situations with some of the people who you basically don't want to get together again

and with some of the people who you know uh you can be like the last soldier on the battlefield with that person because

because they will support you at any point of time

and uh without excuses or something. Oh, I cannot do that or that's too heavy or that's too whatever.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Uh well, anything else uh you have for us or

Well, uh I think this year was very unusual and uh in terms of uh having so many rains.

Yeah. Mhm.

So I think maybe next year our event will be really under big amount of water, you know.

Well, yeah. I mean it sort of fluctuates back and forth. I mean last year was beautiful. This year was mixed. Now it's it's nice. It's Thursday, but it's pretty nice.

But uh yeah. So how do you think uh what do you think like after this year when you go back home? I mean uh like what might you work on for next year or would you even come back next year?

That's a great question. Uh probably yes.

Yeah.

Uh but uh it's still uh too many moving parts at this point of time.

Oh yeah.

To make uh you know

what are your plans 12 months from now?

Yeah. Right. That's 12 months.

But what about like um like regional activity or like do you ever do like Burning Man stuff like outside of the Black Le?

Yes. So have you heard about uh game called Wolf or Mafia?

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So we're about a week before

right live action role playing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, we been doing Burning Man uh werewolf uh game about a week prior to coming to Burning Man.

So, many people were dressed. We had bicycles which were prepared already for Burning Man standing around.

But you're doing it here out on the plates. Yeah.

Not not yet. Not on PL, but that was in my home. And uh you know, cool.

There was a bunch of people who were dressed properly very nicely. and uh and uh all kind of things.

Wow.

So, um

all right. Well, that's been our time we have. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

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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.