Author: Harmony Bench

Audiences and Online Reception Final Project Trailer

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“Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID” was a year-long project convened by Ohio State University Professors Harmony Bench (Associate Professor, Department of Dance), Yana Hashamova (Professor and Chair of the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures), Hannah Kosstrin (Associate Professor, Department of Dance), and Danielle Schoon (Senior Lecturer, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), and funded by a Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme Special Grants Initiative.

This project sought to study the impact of COVID-19 and quarantine experiences on artistic and cultural production by examining historical precedents, considering audiences in their social contexts, and imagining possible futures based on how audiences are currently forming. The heart of the project was a year-long series of 15 curated online events responding to the impacts of COVID restrictions on both research and arts practices. In total, 48 presentations were given through these curated events, many of which were open to the public, and attracted audience members from Australia, Turkey, Israel, Germany, Austria, England, and France. Nearly 650 registrants from around the world took part in the offerings throughout the year. In addition to these presentations, a short documentary was commissioned (co-funded by the Bulgarian studies endowment) which creatively recorded Bulgarians’ responses to governments’ handlings of Chernobyl and COVID. Since the end of March, the video generated 5,000+ views and comments from around the world.

This final video trailer offers an overview of the project as a whole. Enjoy!

Final Organizer Roundtable Discussion

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This roundtable by Ohio State University Professors Harmony Bench (Associate Professor, Department of Dance), Yana Hashamova (Professor and Chair of the Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures), Hannah Kosstrin (Associate Professor, Department of Dance), and Danielle Schoon (Senior Lecturer, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures), comes at the conclusion of their 2020-21 project Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID, funded by a Global Arts and Humanities Discovery Theme Special Grants Initiative.

Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID examines the impact of COVID-19 and quarantine experiences on artistic and cultural production by examining historical precedents, considering audiences in their social contexts, and imagining possible futures based on how audiences are currently forming. This project asks: How does COVID-19 impact cultural production, reception, and circulation? How are artists and scholars evolving their creative practices and research methods in response to quarantine experiences? What engagement strategies are cultural institutions pursuing to develop new audiences as their venues shutter? How are online and offline audiences responding to changes wrought by COVID-19? In what ways do audiences participate in creating meaning and social narratives, particularly during unstable political climates past and present?

This Is Where We Dance Now: Symposium Report

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Photo by Elena Benthaus, used with permission. Design by Regina Harlig.

My biggest project pursued under Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID is the issue of The International Journal of Screendance I am guest-editing with OSU alum (2019) and now Assistant Clinical Professor at University of Maryland, Alexandra Harlig, which is forthcoming in May/June https://screendancejournal.org/. We decided to open a space for our contributors to share their work and hosted a symposium on March 12-13 and 19-20 in conjunction with the special issue. We additionally organized some roundtable events on specific topics of interest: TikTok and Short-form Screendance, The Future of Screendance, and Screendance Festivals and Online Audiences. We tweeted under #WhereWeDanceNow and all of the symposium events were recorded and can be viewed online on the symposium website: https://u.osu.edu/thisiswherewedancenow/

The symposium marked what for many of us was a one-year anniversary of living with COVID, quarantines, and lockdowns as part of our new reality. When I proposed the special issue, I was slightly concerned that the pandemic was going to turn out to be a short blip, and that the issue would not feel relevant when it came out. I could not foresee the magnitude of the pandemic, and that the reason for our convening over those two weekends in March would be to grapple with what it means to make and practice dance onscreen in the midst of a virus that, at that point, had claimed over 2.5 million lives globally—a number that has increased to 3.25 as I write this in May 2021.

As with the journal special issue, the symposium considered the impact of COVID on the field of dance—where, how, why, and under what conditions we dance, now, when all dance is screendance. The symposium was on Zoom at no cost to presenters or attendees, and we were blown away by the response: nearly 300 registrants from around the world for the symposium’s 7 events (3 roundtables, 3 paper panels, and a conversation with the IJSD editorial board). As a global community, it is difficult for the screendance field to gather in person, and the burden to travel usually falls to those in the global south. We hope that this symposium was the first of many more to come, and that the new possibilities and infrastructures that arose to support the pivots necessitated by the pandemic will enable us to continue to sustain a globally expanded vision of dance onscreen.

The Relevance of Katherine Dunham in Times of Uncertainty

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We were thrilled to have the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification in residence this week at Ohio State in Prof. Crystal Michelle Perkins’s Africanist movement practice class for first year Dance majors. IDTC was created in 1994 by Dr. Albirda Rose with the approval and input of Katherine Dunham, and the volunteer collective continues to train the next generation of expert teachers of the Dunham Technique. Penny Godboldo, Certified teacher and former co-director of IDTC, offered a lecture entitled “Survival/Resilience in Challenging Times Through the Wisdom of the Katherine Dunham Technique: A Way of Life,” and Rachel Tavernier, Master teacher and IDTC technique committee chair, offered a master class in Dunham Technique.

Socially distanced dancers in Prof. Crystal Michelle Perkins’s 1st year Africanist movement practice course at The Ohio State University move through barre exercises from Dunham Technique guided by Master teacher Rachel Tarvenier onscreen. Photo by Crystal Michelle Perkins.

Like other dance training organizations, IDTC members have had to modify their practices to continue sharing Dunham Technique. Rachel remarked that they decided to teach classes via Zoom twice a week solely on a donation basis so that students could continue their study and have an escape from the harshness of our times. They have discovered that by using Zoom, they are actually able to meet students from around the world—France, Mexico, Iran, South Africa, Australia, Japan, and Brazil in addition to students all across the U.S.—who may or may not have been able to attend the regular summer seminars, which are usually held in person but were cancelled this year due to COVID. Zoom enables a “world community” to gather around the practice of Dunham Technique. Even after the pandemic is over, they plan to continue to offer classes online.

Composite image of Penny Godboldo’s lecture for dance students at The Ohio State University on the continued relevance of Katherine Dunham’s technique and philosophy for contemporary dancers.

Penny noted that it also felt important to continue this work in light of the current political climate, and especially as a way to affirm Black lives and experiences. Katherine Dunham promoted cross-cultural understanding and developing the whole person in her classes. For Dunham practitioners, the technique is more than a physical practice—“it’s a way of life.” The things learned in the dance studio are carried out into the world, including the mutual relationship between self and community, which requires self-understanding. The current period of COVID-related isolation is actually good for developing this self-understanding, Penny said. “Isolation does not mean being alone … or that you can’t be in community with others … or that you can’t find comfort in yourself.” Instead, it offers a space for self-interrogation where we can find the causes that that we’re passionate about and keep moving, because “anytime we’re not moving, we’re not doing,” and we “have to do something!”

This Is Where We Dance Now

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This image shows a Zoom dance class.

Ohio State Professor of Dance Susan Van Pelt Petry leads dancers through a Hawkins-based spiral floor sequence in April 2020. This is just one example of how studio dance practices have moved online and into our homes during the COVID era. Image used with permission.

For my work as part of Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID, I am delighted to be guest editing an issue of The International Journal of Screendance with Alexandra Harlig (OSU alum, 2019).

Teaching technique on Zoom, holding online dance film festivals, DJing house parties on Instagram, streaming archival performance documentation, making TikToks—the current era of quarantine and social distancing has rapidly rewritten the playbook for dance onscreen and dance online, impacting the dance field at every level. The long-term implications of this upheaval remain to be seen, but for the moment, we are seeing the culmination of a trend that has been unfolding over the past two decades or more: now all dance is screendance.

We are very excited for this issue, which considers both dance artists that have long viewed the Internet as a primary platform for sharing their work within vibrant online communities, and others who have been forced to innovate in response to sudden and radical changes to their practices.

The International Journal of Screendance is open access, and we look forward to sharing this work in May/June 2021. We are also planning roundtables and possibly a small symposium, so stay tuned for related events!!!!