SOAK* 2024
SOAK* is a Burning Man Regional held in Oregon over Memorial Day weekend in a beautiful isolated valley. PNW summers are gorgeous: sunny without being overly hot, with nature on full display. We enjoy attending various regionals; it’s fun to enjoy familiar but distinctly different events.
PHOTO OF MBS HERE
We intended this to be a light burn: a smaller camp, existing art, and no new major art projects. However… we failed and brought most of our large infrastructure as well as creating a bunch of new art.
- Lilac created several new instruments
- Zhigalka, Kalesta, and Ribbit created more Dream Willow Trunks
- Skipper crocheted Jellyfish to swim with WishFish
- Kalesta gave WishFish a glow-up.
- Ribbit and Kalesta revamped our flow space
- Ribbit added foam cushioning to our playatech - which we refreshed with new paint
- Ribbit created “Oracle of the Eye”
- Kalesta, Skipper, and Ribbit created a take-one-leave-one box of drawers
- Kalesta pimped-a-porto as a surprise birthday party for Zhigalka
- Everyone created Electric Ocean-themed Shrinky-dinks
- Ribbit created fish headbands and an aquarium backpack
- Skipper, Kalesta, and Ribbit drew new coloring pages
- We added more Haus Anima stickers, a new camp firepit, and a big SUBWOOFER.
Flora, Skipper’s classic truck, made a debut hauling our subwoofer, generator, Skipper’s new glamping tent, food, water, and more.
The event
As we head towards our third Critical we have become friends with many people in the Critical/IgnitionNW community, and it seems just about every one of them was at SOAK*. It was nice to see all our friends again 👋 and to meet some of their Oregon-based friends.
Recently we met Sludge (IRL: Steven) who’s a flow artist and instructor in the Seattle area. Sludge ended up camping next to us and spent some time in our flow space, teaching and hanging out. It was lovely to deepen our relationship with them and to learn new flow.
Fire Performance
Less than a year ago we were inspired by all the fire performers at Critical and started on our fire journey by acquiring and constructing our own props. Fire is fun: it makes a whooshing noise as it spins around, it heats you up, and it looks amazing. This was our first time performing fire at a Burning Man event. We spent several nights at Cats in Space camp’s open fire flow. At the end of the week Tristan, Skipper, Ribbit, and Zhigalka joined other spinners for Conclave and performed for all of SOAK directly before the Main Burnable Structure was burned.
It’s been incredibly rewarding to live in a house with other artists and performers. We motivate each other on a daily basis. If you get the chance I highly recommend living with a group of your friends.
Editor’s Note: Spinning fire is hard, but something we’re starting to master. Photographing fire is hard and something we haven’t worked on yet.
Regionals
We weren’t sure what SOAK* would be like and we were delighted in so many ways. It was exciting to see so many familiar faces at SOAK*, meet new artists, and we look forward to returning.
Outtakes
Skipper doing Kalesta’s rave braids
Bins Bins Bins - We’re now a 20 bin camp!
The Haus Anima crew
Look at how much fun we had
For the day 1 fans, who have been with us since Z was called up from double A.
Much Love, See You soon
