Dance has the moves to help beat pandemic blues

BDA Dance Forum, a three-day online event initiated by the Beijing Dance Academy, was held from Nov 1-3, bringing together more than 70 dancers, scholars and educators from over 20 countries under the theme of "pandemic, human destiny and dance".

How to keep on dancing and choreographing amid COVID-19? What kind of role does dance play when social distancing changes the way people interact? How to make the transition to online classes for dance students? Those topics were covered during the 18 branch forums, exploring the current issues that dance art and education are facing.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has made 2020 a very different and historic year. The raging pandemic has highlighted the vulnerability of mankind and the fragility of life when we are confronting the unknown challenges of diseases and disasters. However, letting loose and dancing could well be more important than ever," says Guo Lei, president of Beijing Dance Academy, during the forum's opening ceremony.

"During the coronavirus pandemic, we've seen many people, who turned to the mood-boosting power of dance, even the patients in hospitals dancing together, which became headlines in news," adds Guo.

Veteran dancer-choreographer Luo Bin, who is a professor of the China Dancers Association, also shared his own story during the forum. With diabetes and coronary heart disease, the 57-year-old Luo began dancing again during the coronavirus pandemic.

"Life in the time of coronavirus can be scary, stressful, and isolating. Now that I had lots of time staying at home, I danced regularly everyday, which not only improved my health condition but also made me relaxed," says Luo, who learned to practice Chinese folk dance as a child.

Young Chinese dancer-choreographers, including Wang Yabin, Xiexin and Wu Shuai, have moved to online platforms to connect with their fans since theaters have been closed for months due to the viral outbreak.

"It's both a new challenge and an opportunity for us to break the conventional habits for rehearsal and performances in theaters," says Wang, who graduated from Beijing Dance Academy and received training in classical Chinese dance, ballet techniques and contemporary dance. She is a member of the Youth Dance Company of the Beijing Dance Academy.

International collaborations have been a driving force in Wang's Yabin and Her Friends project. For example, she collaborated with choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui from Belgium on Genesis in 2013; and choreographer Elizabeth Roxas-Dobrish from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater on Dream in Three Episodes.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, she had to cancel all her performances during the first half of the year, including her trip to Dusseldorf, Germany and her collaboration with Berlin State Opera, known in Germany as Staatsoper Unter den Linden.

"I made some dance videos and shared them online, which received lots of warm feedback. It made me realize that people need dance, which gave them power to survive,"Wang says.

From September, she started touring national wide with her choreographic pieces, Moon Opera and World.

After the COVID-19 pandemic hit, many schools have launched online classes and meetings to keep teachers and students engaged."How can you possibly teach dance online?" has become a mutual issue for art schools.

According to Guo, the Beijing Dance Academy has been offering online classes till September. In the beginning, it posed a great challenge for teachers since "dance is all about firsthand experience: standing in front of a mirror, moving in one space, and doing a performance together or some combination of all of the above".

"Both teachers and students tried hard to transit between the difference between online and face-to-face engagement. Fortunately, we did it well," says Guo, adding that the online classes also brought some surprising results, such as breaking the limitation of the space and inspiring students' creativity.

"Well, it's been very interesting, says Baptiste Bourgougnon, director of Undergraduate Programs and International Development of London Contemporary Dance School, during the forum."Because at first I really felt like we were going back to the drawing board in the sense that we all have, I think, as teachers habits that we fall into and plans that we use over and over again when we have a class and then suddenly all of this was gone and so I had to really rethink about all of those basic elements and what I want to work on or the students to work on, and so rethinking about this. It's a lot of thinking and preparing but it's been mostly fun and I think all other teachers have been saying the same thing. We've been enjoying the challenge."

According to Dr Lise Uytterhoeven, director of Dance Studies of London Contemporary Dance School, in March, the United Kingdom entered into lockdown as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. While the school had to close its building, the school itself was far from "closed". The staff and teaching faculty immediately set to work to put in place an emergency online provision from March-July.

"We placed a focus on motivation, tuning the students into how they could keep motivated in this new reality. We also lead specific sessions on motivation with dance psychology experts," says Uytterhoeven.