The Bohemian side of Sedona is an integral part of the town’s atmosphere. Coffeehouses and cafes are a good starting place to sample this local color. Live music venues, drum circles, art gallery openings, and dance parties frequently host some of Sedona’s most colorful residents and visitors. There is a natural attraction to this place that pulls in all types, from New Age homesteaders to professional media stars, from fringe society to the resume-laden mainstream. This calling materializes in many forms including the offbeat, Boho lifestyle that catches one’s eye while moving about town.
In the late 1940’s, famous German artist Max Ernst and his wife Dorothy Tanning made Sedona their home and sponsored an unusual circle of visiting friends. Sedona Boho began in this subtle way with Man Ray, Dylan Thomas, Balanchine, and a variety of world-famous artists, musicians, authors, and dancers coming to visit their dear friends in the tiny cabin they had built located on present-day Brewer Road. A bit later the Sedona Art Barn under the guidance of Nassan Gobran gave birth to the first, established local art scene with a few beatnik types mixing it up with the western locals. Early spiritual seekers like Mary Lou Keller and her Sedona Church of Light, the Ruby Focus vortex group, Paramahansa Yogananda followers, and the Happy Nuts free-form dancers brought a different energy to town as early as the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. It was a time noted for a standout and diverse group of thinkers rarely found even in Arizona’s larger cities at the time. Finally, it was the hippies and New Age groups that followed in the 1960’s, 1970’s, and 1980’s that truly cemented Sedona’s affair with fringe, flamboyancy, and flair. Sedona synergy is what I call it and Boho is just another word that tries to name this delightful local essence.
Feel free to add to our mix.
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