Burning Flipside
Burning Flipside (or
Flipside) is an annual alternative arts and perfomance festival staged in
Dripping Springs, Texas near
Austin. Modeled on and loosely associated with
Burning Man, Flipside is one of several Regional burns around the
USA.
Burning Flipside was started in 1998 by Burning Man participants from Texas. Lasting five days during the Memorial Day weekend, it is significantly smaller than Burning Man, with about 600 attendees in 2003, compared to about 30,000 attendees for Burning Man. Attendees build a temporary city called Pyropolis; most of the structures in this city are destroyed at the end of the event.
Many of the core values of Burning Flipside are borrowed from Burning Man, and the same short, memorable terms are used for them, namely:
- No Spectators. Every attendee is expected to participate in some way for the event, with a performance, art piece, or other form of creative expression.
- Radical Self-Expression. Art and gatherings at the event have few restrictions; most emphasize taboo subjects and dangerous situations.
- Self-reliance. All participants are responsible for their own food, shelter, water, and other necessities at the event.
- No Vending. Flipside is a non-commercial event; sales of any commodity for cash are strongly deprecated. Instead, a barter or gift economy is used; participants exchange art products or necessities for like value, or give them away for free.
- Leave No Trace. An extension of the self-reliance principle applied to outdoor living, requiring all participants to respect their environment and clean up everything they bring in.
Theme camps -- groups of participants who build a structure or area for public entertainment with an underlying theme -- and fire art are popular.
Flipside has some differences from Burning Man. One touchstone is comparison with frontside -- the mainstream culture and social milieu which Flipside is a reaction to. In addition, Flipside's location is in a private camp area in the wooded, grassy Texas Hill Country, compared to the flat Black Rock Desert of Burning Man, reducing the stark, otherworldly feeling as well as the possibility of large-scale fire art.
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