A nice article for someone who knows nothing about Burning Man. If you've been, you will learn little that you don't already know. Burners choose to play in a difficult, often uncomfortable environment. They have a higher than average desire to be challenged - by everything from esoteric math and physics discussions to learning (as novices) moderately advanced contradancing (a radically inclusive danceform [1] that has been analyzed with matrices [2], disclaimer - my camp).
1 http://www.burningmancontradance.com/home/contraintro
2 https://ida.mtholyoke.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10166/679/4...