"Tune In … Turn Out … Drop By."

It sounds so sixties, man!

Grant Street Dance Company, channeling Timothy Leary's counterculture mantra "Turn on, tune in, drop out," revisits the postmodern dance movement of the 1960s and '70s in its latest show, "Tune In … Turn Out … Drop By," which opens Friday, Oct. 17, at Stahr Performing Arts Center in downtown Lancaster.

From the 1920s through the 1950s, modern dance stuck to a tradition form: It was meant to tell a story or evoke a specific emotion. It was performed in a proscenium setting, with a clear separation between the dancers and the audience. But that began to change during the tumultuous '60s.

In an era of hippies, drugs and Vietnam War protests, the mind-set of the day was "let's express ourselves, and let's get rid of all the [contrivances], basically, and get down to what really matters," said Grant Street artistic director Kim Jureckson. "Dance was going through the same thing."

Choreographers began to rebel against convention, as did their counterparts in the other art forms.

Does dance really have to be done by dancers? Does it need to be narrative, and must it be performed on a stage? Couldn't everyday movement — walking, running, skipping — be considered a form of dance?

Some people were horrified, of course, but others embraced this revolutionary approach. Dance performances were held in unlikely venues such as parks and city rooftops, and were set to jarring soundtracks — a vacuum, a horn honking, silence. Some dancers had little or no training, and much of it was done for shock value.

"It made people look at dance in a different way," Jureckson said.

While more traditional forms of dance still prevailed in the mainstream, this experimentation had caught on in more urban, avant-garde settings, particularly New York City.

Grant Street evokes that experimental spirit in its new show. It's the latest of the dance company's efforts to educate audiences about the various facets of dance, "so they become a little more knowledgeable about what they're looking at and why they're looking at it — especially modern dance," Jureckson said.

Modern dance shows do frighten some people. They think they're not going to "get it," so they don't go. Jureckson, herself, fell in love with the more traditional form of modern dance while majoring in dance at Mary Washington College in the early 1970s. While she was aware of modern dance's counterculture cousin, she wasn't particularly fond of it.

In putting together this show, Jureckson and six other choreographers didn't attempt to re-create exact dances from the postmodern dance era, as much of that work was spontaneous and fleeting. Rather, they have created original works using the time period as an inspiration and embracing the principles of its choreographers.

"This forces all of us who dance and choreograph to approach dance and performing dance in a very different way," Jureckson said.

Of the show's 20 or so dancers, who range in age from 7 to 70-something, a few are untrained. And some unusual props are used.

In choreographer Tracey Davis' piece, "Limitless," the dancers hold speed limit signs with numbers representing their ages as they explore how age limits movement.

In "Outside Edge," choreographed by Lynn M. Brooks, the dancers toss "charms" — personal effects, such as a favorite earring or a key — to determine by chance where the dancers stand and how the dance proceeds.

Adele Ulrich uses circular chairs in "Continuum of Caring," in which the dancers get audience members involved by asking how they are feeling and responding accordingly.

Jureckson choreographed a dance that showcases the process of creating a dance. In "Re-hashed/Re-assembled," a dance "phrase," or combination of steps, is, well, rehashed and reassembled.

"Hopefully the audience will recognize the basic combination but keep seeing it reappear in a slightly different way," Jureckson said.

The show's other choreographers are Pamela Vail, Melissa Goodling and Della Cowall.

"Tune In … Turn Out … Drop By" begins at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at Stahr Performing Arts Center, 438 N. Queen St., in downtown Lancaster. The Sunday matinee performance has been canceled due to a scheduling conflict with the performance space. For tickets and information, call 396-7764.