Dance in the vernacular

Callicoon Fine Arts hosts movement performance by MGM Grand

WHEN: Saturday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m.

WHERE: Callicoon Fine Arts, upstairs at 27 Lower Main Street.

COST: Free.

CONTACT: or at info@callicoonfinearts.com or 845/887-4202.

CALLICOON, NY — Callicoon Fine Arts will present “dajointe & TONIGHT,” a movement-based performance by MGM Grand, as part of its summer-long inaugural exhibition “All Suffering Soon to End,” on Saturday, June 27 at 7:00 p.m. The gallery, which opened earlier this year, is located upstairs at 27 Lower Main Street.

In 2005, MGM members Felicia Ballos, Biba Bell, Jerry Leary and Robert McNeill started developing dances together in a one-car garage to break from the idealized confines of the dance studio. The evocation of a garage band inspired them to take their dances on the road. Using a few props, they transformed non-traditional spaces into arenas for audience mobilizing dances. Dances were designed to be performed anywhere, on any surface, with any music. They have been performed in more than a dozen U.S. cities, from parks in California to garages in Michigan to gallery spaces in New York.

“dajointe & TONIGHT” combine elements of classical and modern dance, with vernacular dance forms that are often little-known outside of the sub-cultural milieus from which they originate. J-Setting is one such dance form central to the Callicoon performance. Having its origins in African-American cheerleader troupes of the southern United States, the form has since been adopted by black gay men who have taken the dance to their living rooms and nightclubs.

Typically, J-Setting involves a head dancer who performs a short set that is then repeated by a row of rear-guard dancers. The head dancer improvises a variation on the first set that is repeated by the others once more. The cycle of call and response continues until the set becomes too complex for the rear-guard to quickly pick up. J-Setting derivations will be enmeshed within elements that MGM has developed over the course of their many performances.

The event, free and open to the public, is co-sponsored by Nightboat Books, Sullivan County’s only non-profit publisher of innovative literature.