When Burning Man opens on Aug. 25, there will be an art installation on the playa which will no doubt make an impression on the tens of thousands of people attending. It will be a huge memorial for the people who were murdered Oct. 7 at the Nova music festival. The organizers recreated the shade canopy at the Nova festival. There are six uneven spiral staircases, on the top of each one, an angel. The “steps” of the staircases bear the names of those murdered by Hamas on October 7. The words “We Will Dance Again” form an arch at the entrance of the installation.
The piece, “Nova Heaven,” was built by a group of 14 people, led by Nova producers Omri Sasi and Sarel Botavia, who miraculously survived the massacre.
It started with an exhibit at Tel Aviv Expo in December 2023, which replicated the horrors of Oct. 7 with burnt cars, abandoned tents, clothing and personal belongings and portable toilets riddled with bullets. Then there was another installation in New York which was attended by thousands of people.
“We saw the impact it had on people and at the same time, we heard about Burning Man,” Botavia said. “My partner, Omri Sasi, our leading man, said that Burning Man matches the values of Nova. It’s based on connecting people together, preserving the earth and love and light distribution and that’s how the idea came about.”
They quickly got in touch with Galit McCord, a Los Angeles-based film producer and singer-songwriter, who, with the help of Jen Katzir, submitted the application to Burning Man two days before the deadline. Katzir saw McCord’s post on a WhatsApp group about the “Nova Heaven” project. “They needed help organizing and submitting the application for an art piece at Burning Man,” Katzir said. “Despite knowing the time commitment, I jumped at the chance to contribute my experience to this worthy project.”
Katzir has been contributing to Burning Man for 14 years. “My first Burn was in 2010, and I was immediately drawn to the community’s principles. Since then, I’ve volunteered and produced events in New York and Nevada, coordinated major theme camps and worked on art projects and art cars.”
Burning Man, a week-long desert event, draws approximately 70,000 participants each year. It’s a music/art event held in Black Rock, about 110 miles north of Reno, Nevada. At the end of the event, there is a culminating ceremony, a symbolic burning of a large wooden effigy, referred to as “the man.”
Each year there are hundreds of applications submitted to Burning Man. One application that was rejected this year was of a watermelon installation, a symbol of Palestinian resistance to the Israeli occupation, submitted by people who are pro-Palestinian. They also removed the artwork from their website after receiving complaints that its title, “From the River to the Sea,” was antisemitic.
Once the Israeli art installation was approved, the work started. “It usually takes Americans eight to nine months to work on something like that. We are in this process for only a month and a half,” Botavia said. “We want people to understand our message, the importance of healing and the names of those who were murdered. But also, to remember the light. It’s all about love and music, nothing political.”
“We want people to understand our message, the importance of healing and the names of those who were murdered. But also, to remember the light. It’s all about love and music, nothing political.” – Sarel Botavia
Botavia knew 40 people at the Nova music festival; some of them were very close friends. “I deal with it by doing things. We know we have a responsibility on our shoulders and we embrace it and go on a path of light.”
Botavia had produced dozens of music festivals, but he’ll never forget the one on Oct. 7. “Once the music was turned off, I started evacuating people. My girlfriend was with me, and we kept hearing shooting and bombing nonstop. At one point, I realized the terrorists are already there, at our site and I rushed people under the stage. We stayed there for half an hour until two security guards arrived and yelled, ‘The terrorists are here, run!’
“Everyone started running. It was like a scene from a movie. We heard the bullets all around us, some of them hitting the ground just next to us. We were running in an open field until we saw an Israeli tank. We hid behind a tree and saw the fire exchange between the tank and the terrorists until the tank received an RPG.”
At that point, the terrorists started running toward the tank and the location where Botavia was hiding with his girlfriend, and the two started running again.
“I was in a total survival mode. I was a navigator in the army, and I knew the area, so I ran toward Ofakim until we reached safety.”
The next day, he returned to the area with Yagil, his friend and colleague. There he found cell phones and passports of partygoers who were kidnapped, killed or able to escape. “We collected them to bring the families some solace and in order to understand who had died and who survived.”
Ever since that day, Botavia has been doing everything he can to help survivors and their families. “We are doing commemorative projects for them. The first one we did was at the Israel Independence Day and then at Park Hayarkon [in Tel Aviv]. You could see how much strength this community has. The families said that it was the first time they felt their children are with them. They appreciate what we are doing to keep the memory of their children alive. This is a story of light out of darkness.”
The total art installation project cost $200,000. They were able to raise $90,000 in contributions in Israel and the U.S. and hope to bring awareness to the importance of the project and raise the rest. “I hope people will join us and understand our message,” said Botavia. “The good you do in this world and what you create around you is what you get in return.”
A gofundme account has been opened to fund the building of “Nova Heaven.” You can donate at https://www.gofundme.com/f/wewilldanceagainonplaya.
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