Review: Getting existential and extraterrestrial at Earthdance 2017

I know that incredibly odd shit happens every day in Florida, but holy hell was Earthdance Florida weird. Don’t get me wrong, this was one of the most fun festivals in the southeast, but also probably the most uniquely strange I’ve seen to date.

For starters, the festival kicked off with a Kreaturez parade, with nearly a dozen men and women dressed as goddesses, nymphs, dragons, and peacocks roaming the staging areas. All with elaborate makeup, all with eccentric costumes. A fire troop and a collective of drummers from around the country set up a large fire pit in the ground directly adjacent to a cow field full of cows. This was the Sacred Fire and it was fed all festival with logs with drum circles happening every evening until sunrise, people dancing around the fire, and flow artists twirling flames in the corner.

The main stage was housed in a large black tent and had giant fog cannons aimed at the ceiling, trapezes and silk ropes for aerialists, and a huge rectangular screen behind the DJ booth. This stage housed some of the best acts at the festival. To name a few: Living Light, Uncle John’s Band, Whitebear, and The Polish Ambassador, who turned the main stage into what I assume Russian wedding reception looks like with his funky, eastern European influenced tracks. The Bass Station was an incredible installation featuring a raised UFO shaped dome with a DJ booth in the sky and communal hammocks in the support beams. Lunarcrats set up a stage that was completely white with the DJs face visible from a window in his booth behind the stage. At night they played fractal animations over the blank stage. It was also equipped with dual flame throwers, what was likely thousands of dollars in lasers, a fog blaster, and a raised platform in front of the animations for the more professional fire performers. I say more professional because nearly every one in attendance at this incredibly intimate festival was a flow artist of some kind. It was beautiful to watch but made going to any stage a hazardous outing as people swung their props with outstretched arms to the beat.

Most of the music at night was electronic influenced, with the exception of Didges Christ SuperDrum Experience. This was the apex of weird most nights, as the entire band dresses as demon-esque aliens, complete with black light suits, costumed dancers, and martian decorations littering the stage. Their music was a growling mix of extraterrestrial death metal and tribal trance music. The lead singer looked almost identical to Predator and the alien trio consisted of a guitar playing singer, a drummer, and a didgeridoo player modulating his horn through a microphone and midi controller. It was at the same time the most horrifying and most beautiful thing I have ever witnessed with my own eyes. They brought their own stage and lights and performed over multiple nights of the festival.

Maddox Ranch in Lakeland, the site of Earthdance Florida, is home to many burns throughout the year. And that communal, spiritual side was definitely present at this festival as well. Saturday evening, everyone in attendance gathered at the main stage for the global prayer for peace, synchronized with every Earthdance around the world in over 100 locations in 60 different countries. About half of the crowd joined hands and spread out in a big circle encompassing a large portion of the staging area while the prayer played over the system. It really was a beautiful moment and a handful of attendees broke down in tears towards the end. Living Light began her set directly after and the Ranch went back to being a funky, strange wonderland.

Somewhere in the chaos of the weekend, I proposed to my photographer and now finance Kaylee LoPresto. She said yes so all in all it was a pretty great festival.