Caleaf Sellers

Caleaf Sellers, known as Big Leaf, developed as a dancer in Brooklyn and entered New York's late-1980s club movement when house dance was still forming through social exchange. A participant-originator in that emerging culture, Sellers moved fluidly between house and hip-hop styles at a time when club dancers treated these forms as connected rather than separate. He describes the clubs themselves as open social spaces where dancers exchanged information through movement.

Sellers became a member of the Moptop Unit and a founding member of Dance Fusion NYC, a collective that joined dancers with backgrounds in early hip-hop and house. Dance Fusion helped circulate New York club-dance culture internationally while maintaining its social roots—turning friendships and club practice into a movement that could be taught abroad without losing its foundation in lived community.

He also worked across commercial entertainment, appearing in films including *New Jack City*, *Strictly Business* and *Boomerang*. He performed in Rennie Harris's *New York Hip Hop Legends*, worked in television with artists including CeCe Peniston and Crystal Waters, and appeared in music videos for Mariah Carey, Diana Ross, Public Enemy and the Pet Shop Boys. His choreography credits include tours by Crystal Waters, CeCe Peniston and Heavy D.

From 1989 onward, teaching became central to Sellers's practice. Rather than presenting steps without context, he emphasizes foundation, technique and history from an originator's point of view—an approach Mount Holyoke describes as cultural storytelling, helping to formalize social club dances into repeatable movements. His educational projects include Supreme Foundation, MOPTOP Universal, visiting-artist residencies and workshops around the world.

Alongside dance, Sellers has maintained a music practice as DJ, emcee and producer. Under the name Big Leaf he released the *Planets* EP in 2016 and the album *Best Seller* in 2018 through Catch the Ghost Records. In 2020 he collaborated with Coflo on *Color of My Soul*, contributing production, lyrics and vocals. These recordings connect his knowledge of the dance floor to house and hip-hop music-making rather than functioning as a separate pursuit.