Dancing in the Time of Corona

Both of our daughter’s danced and end of the year dance recitals were major life events in our lives for many years. So it wasn’t a surprise that one of our condolence cards referenced the fact. My husband’s coworker wrote, “I can clearly remember (your) pictures of (her) in what seemed to be the 100’s of costumes she wore for her dance recitals and how (you were) so proud of all her accomplishments…”

Now that our grandchildren dance we are attending recitals again. This year was to be the first year for our younger granddaughter but of course recitals like everything else have been canceled this year. Their studio continued to have classes via Zoom and since they already had their costumes they continued to work on their recital dances. The idea was that they would do their dances at home via Zoom on the last day of classes dressed in their costumes and that the link could be shared with others. Since we became “a part of their pod” after 4 weeks of isolation, we purchased flowers for them and arrived at their house bright and early Sunday morning to find two very excited girls ready to dance.

It was not really a success to say the least. For one thing there was confusion about whether or not this was the day they were supposed to be wearing their costumes and inviting people to watch. The link hadn’t worked the week before and it was announced that there would be a make up day and the teacher thought the make up day would be the performance day but the director had communicated that the original last day was still the performance day so all the children were wearing their costumes and we weren’t the only family present in real life or online. Unfortunately the teacher insisted on a regular class and it became clear that it wasn’t really working when our youngest granddaughter spent most of the time looking at a book. But in the end she danced a bit of her recital dance and was very proud to show her flower to the class.

Our older granddaughter who also has to attend school every day via Zoom was ready to go and did her dance several times. While it was a poor substitute for an actual recital they did get to put on their costumes and get their hair and make up done and do their dances and get flowers. My daughter also got some wonderful posed pictures of them in their costumes so this year’s Zoom “recital” will probably become just another “amusing” recital story like the year our daughters’ recital was 5 hours long!