Join us at the Sanctuary for our second annual Be The Dance Party!, an event which emphasized spaces for joy and celebration as acts of resistance. This event is part presentation, part dance party, this year featuring Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, a radical performance community focused on justice issues.

Be The Dance Party! begins with a participatory presentation by Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir inside the Sanctuary main space followed by a march around our North Troy block and a dance party in Freedom Square. This is a family-friendly event.

The Reverend Billy character isn’t so much a parody of a preacher, as a preacher motif used to blur the lines between performance and religious experience. “It’s definitely a church service,” Talen explained but, he added, it’s “a political rally, it’s theater, it’s all three, it’s none of them.” Alisa Solomon, the theater critic at the Village Voice, said of Reverend Billy’s persona, “The collar is fake, the calling is real.” Along with the Church of Stop Shopping, they have been referred to by academics as “performance activism,” “carnivalesque protest,” and “artivists.”

The Stop Shopping Choir is a radical performance community based in New York City, with members coming to the Choir from many different creative and activist backgrounds. They have evolved a very particular sound and performance experience from the synthesis of our lived experience, and are grounded in the work of Justice and in service to the Earth. They love to Sing together.