Are they dancing the same amount, more, less? Have they been able to carve out a space to dance?
How are current college dancers feeling about their college and how it’s handled the crisis, and the future of performing arts at their college? Are the dance classes pass/fail? Will it affect graduation timelines?
Upcoming freshman- how do they feel about possibly starting fall online or ending up online?
My D20 is dancing around the same amount of time, but slightly less, around 3 hours less (plus lost rehearsal times, of course). She’s still at 15 hours a week. She has a 4x8 space carved out in our living room. It has a mirror, a barre, and a space to set up the computer with good angles for zoom. She was using a shower pan liner for her floor, but her studio owner recently gifted her a piece of marley for graduation. She’s had more little aches and pains than usual, but I think that’s to be expected dancing at home. She misses going into the studio and I think would hate it for classes in college, though she loves online classes for regular college classes (she was DE only this year and online all along). I personally worry if her college can weather the financial storm, but that is a wait and see thing, I guess.
My daughter finished her sophomore year at Utah. Their year ends pretty early so she’s been done with classes for a week now I think. (Virtual graduation was yesterday.) She had about 6-7 weeks of online classes. It’s no substitute for the real thing when it comes to dancing but her professors did their best and she still got something out of it. I don’t know how many hours a day she was dancing but it was probably in the neighborhood of 3-4. We’ve ordered some supplies to build her a dance floor so she can try to stay in dance shape for the next 5 weeks or so until her virtual university dances classes start up. If this was how dance was always going to be I’m sure she’d change majors but we’re all holding out hope that things can get back to some sense of normal - meaning dancers in studios - for the fall.
My daughter is finishing her freshman year at George Mason. Her semester started January 20th so she still has a few weeks to go. They have done a great job of transitioning to online classes but it’s just not the same. Obviously, their student choreography pieces aren’t happening. Must less dance than she had on campus. She is lucky that she already had a dance floor at home, a ballet barre and mirrored wall. Hopefully we will get back to normal in the fall.
Mine is dancing less, but keeping busy. Her studio is offering a full complement of classes and she is supplementing with all the other stuff that is available online. She has been teaching this year and continues to teach maybe 5 classes a week via zoom, and will teach summer “camps” and classes starting in June. She ordered herself a piece of marley and now has a better space set up here at home. She has been enjoying connecting with her fellow freshmen-to-be via social media, and has zoomed and has an ongoing group chat with her classmates. The university has done a good job with virtual events so far, but of course it’s not the same as being there. She signed up for virtual orientation this week. And of course she’s worried about what the fall will look like. We’re trying not to borrow trouble before we have a better idea of what the fall holds.
@threegirlpileup its awesome she is still teaching! The studios around here aren’t really doing zoom for preschool or creative movement classes, which is all my daughter teaches, so she’s just out of work right now. She’s an essential worker in her other job (daycare) but we asked her to quit.
Teaching has been a great anchor during all of this. It’s great to be able to see her students and she LOVES teaching so that’s great. She’s also having fun working up some new classes for the summer. Thankful for all the opportunities for engagement!