They stayed in that bench until deep night with their eyes in their cell phones all the time, like a young couple on a romantic date at Culture and Art Square in 南康区 (Nánkāng District), 赣州 (Gànzhōu), 江西省 (Jiāngxī province), China. Photo: 卢致融 (Lú Zhìróng).
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Due to the government-enforced lockdown over coronavirus, Sherazade Mami, a 28-year-old Tunisian dancer, performer and teacher at the Caracalla Dance Theatre, opted to continue practising on the roof of her apartment in the suburb of Dekwaneh on the outskirts of east Beirut, Lebanon just to keep herself in shape. Photo: Joseph Eid/AFP.
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After a month or so of national-popular rhetoric, pathetic hashtags, and online fictional dance classes, Florence’s dance schools suddenly realised that closed doors, blurred mirrors, empty rooms, and no music can’t pay rents. Yet not all schools were equal before. But now we’re all in the same desert. And, yet, we each of us always did our best to do “social distancing” from each other, and, luckly in art, we (most, but not all of us) have always managed to avoid rigged gladiatorial dance contests and all its intrinsic business model. But in the end, nothing helped. It’s all even in the end. We were not all equal, but we’re all equal.
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One thing is by now certain: most of the several thousands of dancing schools, de facto closed until further notice by the government-enforced lockdown due to coronavirus, won’t be able to reopen next September. Empty classes actually mean that dance students no longer have to pay school fees — whilst the rent of the place and the bills are yet running. On the other hand, dance, being an intimate art fundamentally based upon design in movement, passion and body contact, cannot be turned into a parody of skypers and whatsappers practicing jazz-funk-drum style in front of their webcams. After all, mainstream politicians can even afford themselves to simulate democracy through video conferencing and virtual reality. They are paid handsomely for having fun. A dance school — alas! — cannot afford itself to turn into a virtual, non-physical body. Let’s be honest with each other: online classes are not magical enough to charge for it. Virtual coins won’t cover rent costs — and so the question arises, then what are we fighting for?
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“Oh, do most people not submit like this?”, Alexa R. Yakubovich wonders while showing her skills as a dancer. Indeed, she is a Rhodes Scholar and CIHR-funded researcher currently completing her doctorate in Social Intervention at the University of Oxford. Photo: Alexa R. Yakubovich (@AlexaYakubovich).
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