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| The "studio" COVID-19 style |
Like almost everyone else in the whole freaking world, I'm stuck at home. I'm grateful that I have a home, food to eat, my family and my cat to interact with, and a whole slew of other things. I'm not sick. Nobody I love is currently sick. Knock on wood. Lots of people are sick. A guy I knew in college, just 52 years old, died yesterday from COVID-19. He was a pretty well known musician, and Variety reported on his death, which is why I know. There might be other people from my past or present who are sick or dead, and I won't know for weeks. That's the nature of this damn thing.
So, it's a weird time. The ballet community is in a particularly weird space, or perhaps better said, everybody is in their own weird spaces, doing what they can in their garages, living rooms, kitchens, bedrooms, and in at least one case I know of, their master bathroom. The upside of all this downside is that lots of really awesome artists are sharing their home practice with the great unwashed (who showers when they never go out?). I took a ballet class today from Christopher Stowell, who oddly enough was on my younger brother's soccer team back in the day (we lived in the same neighborhood as the Russell-Stowell family, doyennes of PNB). He was in his living room in Toronto (I presume), holding on to the back of an upholstered chair, being elegant. His pianist was somewhere else, but somehow they made it work. If you want to take this class, it is recorded and available on the Zarely website. It kicked my butt. (https://www.zarely.co/pages/live-streams).
The class was free, as are most of these unprecedented opportunities to literally dance with the stars. But let’s not forget that these people are mostly currently going unpaid, and the future of the companies that employed them is uncertain. The big companies have links now on their homepages to donate, but some smaller companies do not, and our local civic ballet had to cancel all its spring classes and performances, so teachers are out of a job, too. Consider making a donation to your ballet school or local company. If you have season tickets, or a refund due on spring classes, you could also donate those funds to the company or school. I'll be donating the remainder of my spring tuition to my school, and I've already made a donation to several regional dance organizations. If you're looking for a place to lend your support, first ask around in your local dance community, or explore one of these general funds:
- Dance NYC COVID-19 Emergency Fund: https://www.dance.nyc/about/donate
- The Dancers' Fund (Chicago): https://chicagodancersunited.org/the-dancers-fund
- Performing Arts Worker Relief Fund (San Francisco/Northern California): https://www.theatrebayarea.org/page/COVID-19relief-fund
- Americans for the Arts has a list of arts relief funds -- scroll down to find it: https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-topic/disaster-preparedness/coronavirus-covid-19-resource-and-response-center
Also, don't forget to keep bugging your local, state, and federal government representatives to include the arts in their thinking about disaster recovery. As I said in a keynote talk I recently wrote for a virtual student research symposium at another university (my first guest speaking gig of that sort, for sure), science will help us address the immediate crisis, but the arts are what will allow us to process the grief, recover our sense of humanity, and rediscover joy.
Quarantinewhile, as Stephen Colbert says, I've been working out a lot, even though I'm still working full time from home. In addition to being an art history professor, I'm in university research administration, which means a lot of things right now. We have to have plans: plans for when the campus completely locks down to ensure that valuable research materials aren't lost, and multi-million dollar equipment is safely maintained, plans for the lab rats if all the vet techs who care for them get sick, plans for our human-subjects researchers whose grants are predicated on working directly with, well, humans. So it's a lot. The working out helps mitigate the stress and the fact that I'm working at a tiny desk that I put next to my dresser in my closet (it has a skylight, so it's not as dreary as it sounds).
I usually do Pilates two or three times a week. I'm up to five, partly just to keep my trainer, who owns her own business and has rent to pay on her studio, in business. At some ungodly hour each morning, I get up, change into my "work" outfit of leggings, a sports bra, and a t-shirt, and "go to class" on Zoom. It's not the same as the Reformer, but we'll deal with it. My butt and shoulders seem to be working harder than ever. And I get to stay in my Pilates clothes all day long. At first, this seemed like heaven. Now it's just a little scungy, and sometimes I actually clean myself up and put on a real shirt and jeans.
As for ballet, I've been taking these online classes, and filming myself while I do them. It is Absolutely Horrifying. I have no illusion that I'm "good at ballet" or anything, but crap, I had no idea how bad I am! Especially my port-de-corps -- arms, upper body, head, they all suck. Oh well, things to work on. My feet make me want to weep. And what happened to my turnout (oh, yeah, hip surgery and 51 years of living on earth).
Anyway, there's no particular point to this entry, other than to remind everyone to take care of our professional dancer and dance teacher friends, and just an effort to follow through on my commitment to restart TightsUp. Maybe I'll have some Deep Thoughts presently. For now, it's just #Stayathome and #practice.
See you at the barre, on IGTV or wherever.
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