The opening montage of the Washington Ballet’s virtual gala last month featured dancers holding signs with messages of positivity: “Here for You.” “Determined.” “Listening.” “Loving.” “Hopeful.”
At the end of the sequence, company members stood outside with their feet firmly planted in parallel: less like dancers than socially distanced superheroes. One held a sign that said “we,” another held “are,” and then Julie Kent, the company’s artistic director, took her place front and center to deliver the final message: “Together.”
But are we? It’s seeming more and more that the idea of togetherness in dance is a case of wishful thinking, at least in the United States where coronavirus cases are rising by the day and there is little federal guidance about how best to contain it.
Dancers, unlike baseball players, may not be known for virus-spreading habits like spitting, but their job poses multiple risks. They work in studio spaces with varying degrees of ventilation, they share dressing rooms, they touch, they are prone to heavy breathing. Under what conditions should dance companies consider getting back into the studio during the pandemic? The protocols to be put in place are dizzying.
The fallout from the Washington Ballet’s gala, which included videos and live programming, was concerning and a cautionary tale for other companies. Ms. Kent announced that she had tested positive for the coronavirus; two others, Ashley Bronczek, a gala chairwoman, and a company member with a non-dancing role at the gala also tested positive. (Ms. Bronczek hosted a party in her backyard following the gala.)
The company said it followed all the guidelines mandated by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the D.C. Department of Heath. When not on camera, participants wore face masks; when they were on camera, none were worn, including in an awkward attempt to create a festive bar scene featuring Ms. Bronczek, the dancer Corey Landolt and Sara Lange, the gala’s other chairwoman. One of the program’s dances, a group work, was choreographed virtually and took place in an open-air parking garage.
Obviously there is a learning curve when it comes to dance and Covid-19, but even with precautions in place, the Washington Ballet gala was a reminder of how insidious the virus is. Am I anxious for dancers to get back in the studio? Of course. But even as companies and festivals take steps toward normalcy, dance, with its fundamental lack of social distancing, has a way to go.
As far as live dance is concerned, the outdoor variety is the only option at the moment. One of the very few opportunities to see it in action will be at the Kaatsbaan Summer Festival 2020, which takes place over weekends in August and September on one of the property’s large fields, in Tivoli, N.Y., located in the Hudson Valley, where more restrictions have been lifted than in New York City.
Still, for the Kaatsbaan festival, there are many strictures in place. Programs will be short — about 20 to 30 minutes each — and feature four to five pieces, solos and duets, with duets danced only by those who have been living and quarantining together. Brevity is a way to avoid the need for bathroom use, which is prohibited except in case of an emergency. All transactions will be digital and audiences are limited to 50.
There are three ways to watch: from a car, as well as from benches and blankets, both spaced 10 feet apart. Arrival times will be staggered. It promises, at the very least, to be an opportunity to see some actual live dancing, but it might take more time to get settled than to watch the program itself.
Obviously, it will be a long time until we see dance as we once knew it. Both American Ballet Theater and New York City Ballet, the city’s two premier ballet troupes, said it would be premature to announce plans for reopening. At City Ballet, a spokesman said numerous discussions around health and safety issues and protocols are happening, including with the American Guild of Musical Artists, medical professionals and government officials.
Ballet Theater’s executive director, Kara Medoff Barnett, said in a statement that the company is “looking at many scenarios for when we are once again able to safely train, rehearse and perform” but that “because of the uncertainties and complexities caused by the ongoing pandemic, nothing can be confirmed at this time.”
At the moment, there are more questions than answers. But before any performances can take place, even with the ban lifted, dancers need to get back into the studio. (While the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago announced it would return to its studios on Sept. 8, that could change depending on whether the company “is able to provide a safe and healthy environment,” a spokeswoman said.)
It’s not dance companies, though, that I’m looking at right now: I’m watching the protocols developing around school openings. I am also keeping a close eye on sports too. In the N.B.A., infections were on the rise until players were placed in a compound in Florida. (On July 20, none of the 346 players tested positive.) But this requires resources, and dance companies, even the most successful, don’t have anywhere near the kind of money (not to mention popular reach) that sports franchises do.
As I contemplate how on earth dance can return to the stage, I often turn to the podcast “This Week in Virology,” on which discussions are technical, sobering, full of information and more questions. We are still in early days, as “This Week” points this out all the time. If you care about dance — if you care about culture — tune in. The podcast’s scientists may not know who Alvin Ailey is — then again, they just might — but their discussions relate directly to our world.
They talk about testing. Daily testing. This is crucial for schools, for athletes — and for dance. Identifying symptoms is subjective; while one person might feel terrible, another might push through. By nature, dancers push through. And they want to be dancing. Apart from a vaccine, daily testing — from home, before leaving for the studio — seems like the only feasible solution for safe rehearsal. Even though paper-strip tests are less sensitive than nasal swab tests, their speed and ease would be a game changer.
But before any consistent testing happens — and how long will that be? — there is an opportunity for dance to morph into something else as it finds a life off the stage.
The Coronavirus Outbreak ›
Frequently Asked Questions
Updated July 23, 2020
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What is school going to look like in September?
- It is unlikely that many schools will return to a normal schedule this fall, requiring the grind of online learning, makeshift child care and stunted workdays to continue. California’s two largest public school districts — Los Angeles and San Diego — said on July 13, that instruction will be remote-only in the fall, citing concerns that surging coronavirus infections in their areas pose too dire a risk for students and teachers. Together, the two districts enroll some 825,000 students. They are the largest in the country so far to abandon plans for even a partial physical return to classrooms when they reopen in August. For other districts, the solution won’t be an all-or-nothing approach. Many systems, including the nation’s largest, New York City, are devising hybrid plans that involve spending some days in classrooms and other days online. There’s no national policy on this yet, so check with your municipal school system regularly to see what is happening in your community.
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Is the coronavirus airborne?
- The coronavirus can stay aloft for hours in tiny droplets in stagnant air, infecting people as they inhale, mounting scientific evidence suggests. This risk is highest in crowded indoor spaces with poor ventilation, and may help explain super-spreading events reported in meatpacking plants, churches and restaurants. It’s unclear how often the virus is spread via these tiny droplets, or aerosols, compared with larger droplets that are expelled when a sick person coughs or sneezes, or transmitted through contact with contaminated surfaces, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech. Aerosols are released even when a person without symptoms exhales, talks or sings, according to Dr. Marr and more than 200 other experts, who have outlined the evidence in an open letter to the World Health Organization.
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.
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What’s the best material for a mask?
- Scientists around the country have tried to identify everyday materials that do a good job of filtering microscopic particles. In recent tests, HEPA furnace filters scored high, as did vacuum cleaner bags, fabric similar to flannel pajamas and those of 600-count pillowcases. Other materials tested included layered coffee filters and scarves and bandannas. These scored lower, but still captured a small percentage of particles.
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Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?
- So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.
Since Covid, training has been happening online, in kitchens and cramped living rooms; rehearsals are on Zoom and outdoors. But the potential for new group dances remains uncertain; how much can choreography flourish in a coronavirus world? One thing the last few months have shown me is that while Zoom is a useful tool, it’s not a vehicle to transform the art form or to take it to another place.
This is the beginning of a new dawn of digital dance and the sheer volume of it can be an overwhelming display of quantity over quality. But what I’ve found is that it’s not about the platform — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube — it’s about moving beyond the facile and the superficial.
Am I the only one becoming weary of Zoom dances in which movement is passed from one dancer to the next like a baton? Or of anguished solos, in which a dancer’s emotions are bubbling right there on the surface? It can get sentimental, understandably so.
I want more realness, and that can’t just come from experimenting with technology. (Though camera angles could certainly be improved!) It originates in the body — taking charge in deeper, more somatic ways and dancing as if the camera isn’t even there. When that happens, even though I’m watching through a screen, it’s as if a performance is guided by sensation — the internal perception versus the outward view — and I’m drawn inside.
It's dancing on a cellular level, which is exciting — it means you can’t fake it. One such young dancer and choreographer is the entrancing Maya Lee-Parritz whose Instagram videos are rich experiments in motion, as are the films by the choreographer Alonzo King. He connects his dancers with nature, not because he has suddenly placed them outside, but because his choreography and training are rooted in the natural world. Intention was already in their bodies.
As the dance world wrestles with the coronavirus, it must consider reality. Everyone wants to get back to the stage, but to open too quickly and have to retreat would be a nightmare — possibly worse than the one we’re going through now. It has to be safe for everyone. But in trying to match its inherent resilience with imagination and creatively delving into new forms, it might be a good time to slow down and look inward. There is still art to be made.
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