Professor Ndiaye dances for a university mask wearing ad campaign.
Dance studio converted to media lab
Dance staff Damian Bowerman and Amy Schmidt setting up for a recruiting event.
Dance Professors Valarie Williams and Daniel Roberts pitch in to clean the Barnett Theatre between classes.
Dance students practice in the outdoor dance tent.
Anti-Racist Working Group logo
MFA Student KJ Dye leads a Community Conversation.
One can only imagine the amount of research, writing and performance focused on capturing the key moments from this challenging year that will likely inspire next year’s presentations by academics in all fields, not to mention all the sardonic post-pandemic t-shirts that will probably pop up in stores. Where do we go from here? What did not work? What practices do we keep? As we all catch our collective breath after the spring semester sprint, let us pause to reflect on some of the sacrifices, losses and teachable moments of last year.
Ohio State Dance leadership, faculty and staff spent much of last summer making plans, designing courses and moving furniture, with changes literally every minute. This was a year of adaptation, frustration and innovation for us all. Department Chair Dr. Nadine George-Graves led the charge for the pandemic pivot guiding the faculty and staff through uncharted waters with other university leaders. Academic Program Coordinator Amy Schmidt worked tirelessly with the Dr. George-Graves to adeptly update the capricious course schedule with a grid that morphed like a Tetris screen. Department Manager Jennifer Adams navigated a system change to Workday during a global pandemic, increasing the complexity of her already multifarious human resources and financial responsibilities. External Relations Coordinator Damian Bowerman moved student visits, recruiting efforts, communications and events online, including College Day, our annual open house for high school students. Production Manager Jonathon Hunter quickly shifted his focus to building safety coordination, developing a COVID-19 Department Handbook, putting up safety signage, plotting and taping studio floors with physical distancing circles, and working with the college to facilitate the set-up, maintenance and operation of an outdoor tent complete with lights, sound and a Marley dance floor. Interdisciplinary Production Manager Oded Huberman and Instructional Technologist Chris Summers worked with Hunter to transition the Barnett Theatre into a classroom and a studio into a larger media lab. Summers worked with the college and a vendor to add cameras in studios so instructors could project themselves to a class in another studio allowing them to teach in two separate studios simultaneously so students could participate while remaining physically distant. These are just a few examples of the countless behind the scenes efforts of our dedicated staff to enable our faculty and students to continue classes with safe in-person, online and hybrid experiences.
Our esteemed faculty modified their course syllabi in a reflection of the times to be flexible to the needs of the students, the advisories of the university and the resulting requisite teaching format, so classes could quickly shift from in-person to Zoom as needed. Using technology, they developed innovative ways of collaborating, creating work and practicing movement. Be sure to read the Spring Repertory feature story in this issue of InForm to see some highlights of the pioneering works that were made.
And, of course, we could not be prouder of our students, who overwhelmingly and understandably wanted to maintain as much of an in-person experience as possible. They courageously pursued their passions, projects and performances while dutifully attending to mandated COVID tests and protocols and ultimately experienced a year their generation can claim as one of the most unique, brimming with a heap of new challenges and learning opportunities. Skills they gained from their use of adaptive technology will continue to be in demand as dancers are often called upon for creative pedagogical solutions. The strength of our academic dance program shined this year in the eyes of our amazing students.
In response to the social justice needs of the department, Dr. George-Graves met with the Anti-Racist Working Group (ARWG), a sub-group of Dancers in Graduate School (DiGS), an Ohio State student organization, weekly to collaborate on fostering initiatives such as a community anti-racist workshop to be held online twice a week. The group hosted a 2-hour interactive Racism 101 Workshop facilitated by graduate student Alex Christmas and alumnae Kathryn Logan and Lyndsey Vader. After this introductory workshop last fall, the group continued the series until the end of spring semester and they are continuing the series this summer.
In addition to these workshops, the ARWG established affinity groups where people in the community joined to learn around an identity commonality. Other important work included strategizing a credit-bearing course and certificate program, grant writing, researching potential guest speakers and celebrating black students, alumni, professors, guest scholars and artists connected to the Ohio State Dance community through their social media solidarity platform, #OSUDancers4BlackLives.
During the spring semester, MFA Student KJ Dye organized, publicized, and hosted Community Conversations, “a department initiative to strengthen our commitment to anti-racism and collective action by fostering dialogue and critical thought in the service of an equitable, affirming and sustainable arts ecosystem,” says Dye. “Community Conversations brought together a network of artists, scholars, practitioners and activists to propagate small-scale creative solutions to impact our communal environment. What emerged from this space is the intentionality of working together on purpose to think, dream, confront, heal, envision, trust, connect and grow our capacity as a community to build and embody the just and liberated worlds we want, long for and deserve.”
No news article can capture all the intricacies of such a complex year, but we hope this summary will encourage the dance practitioners and scholars of tomorrow to utilize what we have learned today to strengthen the community and the field. And we look forward to reading all the provocative research, seeing all imaginative new works and wearing all the waggish graphic t-shirts that will tackle these important concerns.
