Posse Ground Dance Comes Indoors: DJ FEELZGOOD Leads a Three-Hour Journey for Sedona's Flood Relief

Every Thursday afternoon, Sedona dances at the Posse Grounds Pavilion. This week the pavilion was spoken for: the Sedona Mountain Bike Festival takes over Posse Grounds Park from November 6 to 8. So the Posse Ground Dance came indoors, to humankind, and it was an honor to hold the space.

At the decks was Elden, known to the dance floor as DJ FEELZGOOD, with a three-hour ecstatic dance journey from 2:00 to 5:00 PM on Thursday, November 5.

Why Did the Dance Give Its Donations to Flood Relief?

The Posse Ground Dance is a donation-based community gathering, and this week the community had somewhere to send it. Over the weekend of October 31, Oak Creek flooded parts of Sedona. Local news reported homes evacuated, dozens of people rescued from the creek, an emergency declared by the city and State Route 89A torn apart through Oak Creek Canyon. Families came home to ruined houses.

Every donation from Thursday's dance went to the people affected by the floods. Nobody had to be asked twice. The floor filled, the basket filled, and for three hours a town that had a hard week moved together.

What Did DJ FEELZGOOD Play?

Elden builds a set the way a good host builds an evening: it starts where people are and takes them somewhere. Thursday's journey opened with call-and-response chant, moved through spoken word about love and letting go, and climbed into hip-hop, Afro-Latin and Caribbean rhythms that got the whole room moving. There were songs everybody knew and songs nobody did, a gratitude chant for sunshine and rain alike, and a quiet passage about water and intention that landed differently in a week like this one.

That is the ecstatic dance format at its best. No talking on the floor, no steps to learn, no right way to do it. You move the way the music moves you, or you stay still, and both are welcome.

How Does a Three-Hour Dance End?

Gently. After the peak, DJ FEELZGOOD brought the room down by degrees and invited everyone to find a pillow, lie down and breathe. The last stretch is a guided rest, the part of the afternoon where the dance settles into the body.

The Posse Ground Dance goes back to its home at the pavilion once the bikes roll out. We are grateful it spent this Thursday with us, grateful to Elden for the journey, and grateful to everyone who danced and gave. Sedona looks after its own.

The full set is on humankind for anyone who could not be in the room.

▶ Watch the replay on humankind →