I went to Burning Man by myself for the first time in 2008. I drove up in my truck, parked next to the truck of a man I had met the week before at Harbin Hotsprings. He said I could stay at the Alternative Energy Camp without issue. This was the first time I was going to Burning Man without my dance company. It was the first time I was going to Burning Man without a formal performance appearance planned. I decided that I wanted to improvise. I had a score. I was going to go to whatever space had good music and I was going to drop a dance bomb.
A dance bomb is something I made up. I would walk into a camp, dance as hard as I could for five to ten minutes, and then I would walk out. I would raise the energy in the room but I wouldn’t get stuck or feel committed to staying there all night. The way I would dance is that I would let go as much as possible. I would let my body lead. I would give my body over to the music and let it control my movements. This is something I had known how to do for a long time. People would be amazed at how synched I would be with the sound because if I was thinking about it, there would be a delay. But since I was bypassing my self-conscious, critical mind, I was able to be on each and every sonic transition without trying.
It worked. I would walk in, drop a bomb, raise the energy, and walk out. Often people would follow me out of the club and ask where I was going. I would say, ‘That’s it. I dropped my bomb and I’m done.’ It was a practice in freedom. It was a practice in non-commitment. It was a practice in flow. It was a practice in personal influence. I loved it.
Recently I was at a party and I realized that the superpower I have to let the music move my body is given to anyone who takes a solid dose of Ketamine. They begin to feel the freedom, flow, and ecstasy of watching their bodies move before their critical mind has time to decide, critique, or control. Ketamine… bionic flow in a parallel universe, an ocean wave of energy moving your body along with the energy in the room. All one flow.
I love to watch the sheer joy that people experience when leading with their movement. My secret power is now theirs. They are watching themselves, surprised by their own liberation. The compound is the teacher - showing them their own potential for freedom and flow. Afterward, I am not sure if they can always capture that level of inhibition on their own, but first, you need to know it exists in you in order to pursue it.