I forgot how to dance.
The last two weeks of March, I was scrambling to get out of New York City and back to San Diego. I left my classes, my friends, my apartment in Alphabet City. My artistic self –my dance self– was hiding behind fear and uncertainty.
As a contemporary dance major, I was used to attending hours of movement classes and rehearsals throughout the week, so the sudden quarantine demands felt like cosmic destruction to my art. I didn’t know how my dance classes would work online. I didn’t know how my rehearsal classes would work. I didn’t know how I would be able to dance while being quarantined. I didn’t know when I would see my friends. I felt lost.
Being back in my childhood home indefinitely with only my parents has made me realize that I was not meant to be an only child. My older sister decided to quarantine in her apartment in Los Angeles. In her absence I’ve been using dance to keep me company.
So, I decided to try just dancing on my own outside in my front yard, hoping that this would help me find the part of myself that has been hiding.
I would play music and record myself improvising to whatever felt right. This seemed to be impossible. Everything I did felt clunky and off; I was growing more and more frustrated. I ended up with videos that captured me struggling to dance for 45 seconds and another five minutes of me lip syncing the song I’m dancing to because I’m having dancer’s block.
Was it the environment I was in? Was it the music I had chosen? Was it my anxiety about the world preventing me from dancing freely? Was it the anger that I felt about not knowing when the next time I would be able to perform would be? I wasn’t sure, but I knew I had to change something.
I sent my dad on a mission to The Home Depot to get me a piece of plywood to dance on, so I wouldn’t break my knees trying to move on uneven concrete. The wood helped a little bit; I was able to dance barefoot and to turn and glide the way I wanted to. But, I still felt uninspired.
I felt so far away from my dance life that had been defined by living in New York. Being back in my childhood home made me feel like I was regressing in my movement, my dancing seemed childish and insignificant. I realized the thrill I get from dance stems from dancing with my friends and feeding off their energy. Dancing with people is a gift that I never knew I had taken for granted until now.
To say I was skeptical about Lang’s dance Zoom classes would be an understatement. I flat out didn’t think they would work. I’m not gonna lie, they did have a rocky start, personally waking up to do 7 AM ballet class was not something I had been looking forward to. There was also the glitchiness of Zoom, the lag with music, and unstable WiFi that I hadn’t realized would be a factor.
However, the more classes that have gone by, the better we have adapted. There have been glimpses of normalcy. One particular session, my contemporary dance professor, Nia Love, yelled out to all of us, “DANCE CHILDREN DANCE!” When she said this, I could feel everyone’s energy come alive and it felt like we were back on 25th street fogging up the windows of the dance studios with our sweat and body heat. It made me hopeful.
My classes have been adapting to our new virtual reality. My rehearsal repertoire classes were centered around preparing to perform in May at New York Live Arts, but have now had to change their approach on how to finish the semester. We’ve been doing personalized studies on our own that we bring and share to class. I’m mostly making a lot of videos in which I explore my movement and inner self, it is both interesting and deeply unsettling.
Being distant doesn’t mean we are disconnected from one another. As artists we are connected to one another through our spirits. Even though my friends and I don’t get to perform on a stage together like we had hoped, we can still come together in this time of isolation to put aside our fears for a little to dance.
Dancing has been my oxygen and safe haven for as long as I could remember. I will not let this time break that part of me. No artist should. Yes, this time is scary and the level of uncertainty is overwhelming, but I’ve danced my way through life and I refuse to let this period stop me.