Month: August 2017

Gymnasium schedule at Burning Man 2017

by αNaturist, posted in active naturists

In a couple of weeks, our theme camp Gymnasium will come again to the much anticipated Burning Man festival. If you read this and plan to be there, I’m pretty sure you’ll want to visit our camp.  You can read about our theme camp idea on its page and check out our last year’s experience.

 

Below is the list of our events, but keep in mind that we plan to do even more than we have announced – so stop by our camp at 7:30 Plaza and you’ll find something fun to do and learn… all in the buff! For example, we got a gymnastics wheel last year, which turned to be a hugely popular toy, and this year we’ll add an aerial rig to our arsenal! And what is amazing is that even our busy schedule is just a tiny fraction of all the “craziness” that Burning Man is!

  • Butt-Cheeky Run Come get your burn started – with the sun’s soft caresses on your butt cheeks! The Ancient Greeks always trained and competed naked – in fact the ’gym’ comes from the word ‘gymnos’, meaning ‘naked’ in Greek. Come experience the freedom of running together in the altogether! Or at least come and see what a great spectator sport it is:) We’ll do a warm-up at the camp and then run wild in the ‘hood and all the way to the Man!
    • Monday, 28 August, 3:30 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Naked Oil Wrestling Wrestling is one of the most fun sports you can ever try. It’s also one of humanity’s oldest and was among the major events of the original Olympics. Long before we were kicking balls around we were rolling around in the dirt, putting each other in headlocks! It doesn’t matter if you’re a complete novice who’s never tried it in your life or an experienced fighter, come along and experience this amazing bonding experience in Gymnasium, Black Rock City’s Ancient Greek wrestling school!
    • Tuesday, 29 August, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
    • Thursday, 31 August, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
    • Saturday, 2 September, 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.
  • Discus-ish Throw in the dark… and in the buff Discus (well, LED-lit frisbee) throw competition followed by ultimate frisbee game (or regular frisbee, depending on the mood). Bare your body, but wear lights! The Ancient Greeks always trained and competed naked – in fact the ’gym’ comes from the word ‘gymnos’, meaning ‘naked’ in Greek. Come experience the amazing freedom of running and jumping and exercising free of clothing! Or at least come and see what a great spectator sport it is:) This is our only night event, but don’t worry about cold – movement will keep you warm!
    • Wednesday, 30 August, 8 p.m. – 9 p.m.
    • Friday, 1 September, 8 p.m. – 9 p.m. (rain date)
  • Naked Piggy-Back and Wheelbarrow Run Race are with us for this fun athletic event! Bring your friends, but choose wisely, as you’ll have to bear them on your back, bareback… or vice versa. Great bonding experience guaranteed! The Ancient Greeks always trained and competed naked – in fact the ’gym’ comes from the word ‘gymnos’, meaning ‘naked’ in Greek. Come experience the amazing freedom of running and jumping and exercising free of clothing! Or at least come and see what a great spectator sport it is:) PS In ancient Olympics this would have been an equestrian event, but BMORG wouldn’t let us bring horses…
    • Friday, 1 September,  4:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
  • Nude Yoga + Wine Nude yoga and acro-yoga – for a better flow and connection 🙂 We’ll end the session with drinking wine in your favorite poses, as Ancient Greeks sometimes drank wine in acrobatic poses at their symposiums. Then you could stay for our philosophical discussions sessions. Free your body, free your mind!
    • Monday, 28 August, 4:45 p.m. – 6 p.m.
    • Wednesday, 30 August, 4:45 p.m. – 6 p.m.
  • Naked Philosophy Nudity has the power to surprise and shock, yet why, on reflection, can something as mundane as the naked body inspire simultaneously so much passion and revulsion? To be naked in 21st century western society demands intense self-examination, the questioning and reappraisal of conventional conventions and morality. In this sense, naturism, as the cultural and political movement of nudism is often known, is an inherently philosophical practice. And what better way to do philosophy than naked? We’re sure your college seminars would have been much more fun nude. Come and join us for lively discussions, debates and story-telling. We’ll be discussing naturism, body image, sharing experiences, debating body modification, if and how laws should be changed – really everything related to the human body.
    • Monday, 28 August, 6 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
    • Wednesday, 30 August, 6 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
    • Friday, 1 September, 6 p.m. – 7:15 p.m.
  • Kerameikos (Ancient Greek pottery) Ever wondered how those ancient vases were produced and decorated? Find out at our pottery school at Gymnasium, and you’ll be able to make some ceramics (kerameikos) of your own! It’s a three step process: first, we’ll make the vases of different shapes using coil building techniques; then, we will let the clay dry to apply the slip and carve designs. (You can use the break for lunch or try some of our big toys, such as aerial rig or gymnastics wheel). At the last stage, the pots have to be fired after Burning Man, but we could ship your masterpiece to you, if you’d like! Otherwise, we’ll use it to decorate our camp and use the most appealing ones to award the winners of our athletic events next year.

 

Hope to see many of you there!

‘Tis Hamlet’s character. “Naked!” – see it for yourself at a performance in NYC parks!

by αNaturist, posted in active naturists

There have been countless interpretations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, but this summer Torn Out Theater has presented perhaps the boldest version and at the same time also the truest to the character. After all, Hamlet himself wrote to Claudius: “High and mighty, You shall know I am set naked on your kingdom”, – to which he confirmed: “‘Tis Hamlet’s character. ‘Naked!'” You may argue that there is no need for such literal interpretation, but through this production, Torn Out Theater aims to draw attention to “fraught, complex world of male body image”.

Jake Austin Robertson as Hamlet; photo by Marjolaine Gallet.

The cast is all male, which is actually in accord with the theatrical tradition in Shakespearian times. In this respect, last year’s performance of ‘The Tempest‘ with an all-female cast was even more revolutionary. If the Tempest was played by amateurs (mostly from the Outdoor Co-ed Topless Pulp fiction Appreciation Society), this year’s production features professional actors. Jake Austin Robertson did amazing job playing Hamlet, in my opinion (and I heard the same from other spectators), and as he reveled in the press release at Pix11, nudity might have helped: “It’s a means of discovering his own truth and figuring out who he is regardless of whatever everyone else wants him to be”. However, not all actors in the play were naked, and those who were – for various periods of time. It seemed like nakedness was used as a tool to show that the character revealed his true colors, especially in emotional moments. This may be a pretty good theatrical tool to keep the audience engaged, given that there are studies showing that people are more compassionate and empathic when they see images of naked people compared to clothed people (not to mention saving money on costumes). Actors, on the other hand, get an additional way to express themselves – with the body language (and probably even without realizing it) – as such features as tension of the muscles or subtle changes in the posture would usually be concealed by costume. All this certainly worked for [spoiler alert! but you probably know the storyline to some extent anyway] the brilliantly choreographed fight scene between Hamlet and Laertes, or the final scene of Hamlet dying in the arms of Horatio.

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So, you could (should!) see it all for yourself this weekend in Prospect Park in Brooklyn or in the beginning of September in Central Park. While the more known Public Theater features Hamlet “running around in his underpants“, our advice is to check out Torn Out Theater that goes all the way! Moreover, the performance is also free of charge (but donations are encouraged). Arrive earlier to get better seating; only limited amount of chairs is available for rent – but the atmosphere has a nice picnic vibe to it, so seating on the grass is what most people opt for. Overall, it is a great idea to have this performance in the parks out in the open, which makes this theater truly public. Compared to the famous ‘Shakespeare in the Park’, this is a much more intimate, immersive show… and who knows, maybe at some point there will be a show where the audience can be naked too. This is what is going to happen during the rock musical ‘Hair’ in London.

It would be good to hear opinions of people involved in theater professionally, so feel free to leave comments here. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure there will be some coverage form a couple of major outlets soon.