dance

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.

Unlocking Corporeal Puzzles: Master Class with Danielle Agami, March 25, 2021

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Choreographer Danielle Agami likes algebra’s complicated puzzles, the ones that require subcutaneous investigation to approach their solutions. Her movement class also fosters this kind of inquiry. On March 25, 2021, she Zoomed into The Ohio State University Department of Dance for a master class with participants in Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After Covid. She guided us to negotiate various interlocking qualities in our bodies to find a summary balance. She directed us to engage our spines like seaweed and our heads like helium-filled balloons (and then to re-locate that helium in our pelvises). We led our bodies by the elbows; we pushed one palm against the other with the full force of each arm, then did the same with the legs against the floor; and we retained a rumbling quake deep within our full-body investigations.

The movement exploration in Agami’s class is a kind of compositional practice, wherein participants compose the body. Her visceral, gastronomical imagery renders seaweed limbs and interstitial ribcage cartilage melting like butter. Negotiating these divergent movement qualities established spaces between my muscle fibers that made way for ascertaining renewed bodily information. As participants, we toggled between Agami’s verbal instructions and watching her and each other on our individual screens to tap into feelings of dancing together across the online distance.

Agami founded her Ate9 Dance Company in Seattle, Washington in 2012 and moved it to Los Angeles in 2013, where she is currently based. She began her dance career with eight years in the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, as a dancer and rehearsal director, then moved to New York in 2010 to serve as Senior Manager of Gaga USA. She left New York for Seattle and Gaga for her own explorations to carve her way as an artist and to establish a touring company in the United States. Her company has toured widely, stopped only by the Covid-19 pandemic.

The main change that Agami identifies in the pandemic is not to take anything for granted. And, she told us, she believes the pandemic has made people in the wider society understand the precarity that artists have long experienced. But for her, the pandemic has not been about dancing. She has made some short films to keep creating, but she was under no pretense that dancing on Zoom was any kind of replacement for dancing in the theater. Her audiences? They disappeared. She took another job and considered preparing for medical school to fulfill a long-held dream, but decided instead to continue her dance research and to establish the arts more prominently in society. Zoom has been necessary during the pandemic, but she has not given up her desire to perform in large theaters for the immediacy and power of live performance. She plans for Ate9 to tour extensively as the pandemic wanes. As we transition out of the pandemic’s peak, she looks forward to seeing more young artists take up the political charge with provocative experimentation to challenge conservative societal structures.

“Just like this virus, music is universal”: Turkish Hip-Hop performance and discussion with Tahribad-ı İsyan, November 13, 2020

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Tahribad-ı İsyan rapping from their studio in Istanbul at the virtual event on November 13, 2020

How do we experience a concert in Zoom? How do the performers convey the energy of their music on a computer screen? How do we, as audience members watching from home, choose to show that we are listening? These are some of the questions we asked and began to answer at the virtual concert presented by Turkish hip-hop group, Tahribad-ı İsyan, on November 13, 2020. The audience was made up of OSU students and faculty, as well as scholars and activists as far afield as Turkey, Germany, and Austin, TX. After a presentation about the origins of the group by their mentor and friend, activist Ms. Funda Oral (available on our Archives page), the two hip-hop artists, Asil and Burak, performed five of their hit songs and then participated in a question and answer session with the audience. When we transitioned from the presentation to the performance, I asked the audience members to consider turning their cameras on so that Asil and Burak could see them. As a teacher who made the move to online education this year due to COVID-19, I empathize with how difficult it can be to engage with a sea of black screens and the lack of physical cues or feedback.

The first song they performed, “Çamur” (Mud) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcscMoVziI), is about always remembering where you come from. As Asil and Burak traded lyrics about their neighborhood over a slow and steady beat, I put my Zoom window on gallery view so I could see the other audience members. One of my students was immediately up and dancing. Others, like me, remained seated but moved our heads, hands, or torsos to the beat. I registered pleasure and surprise on the faces of some as the song built and Burak began punctuating his rap with trills (rolled Rs). Asil and Burak couldn’t jump around the stage as usual, but they were giving it their all, dancing in their seats and performing to the camera. They went on to perform their songs, “Geri Dönemem” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-alY0xb9QeQ), “Leyla” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ieb7hzIk2C8), “Ghetto Star” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ec8ejWdEgX4), and “Alev Alev” (youtube.com/watch?v=HHrdoglZ1wc). In between, they were all laughter and humble thanks, taking a few minutes to explain the next song and reach out to the audience with the few English phrases they know: “Like that!”, “Let’s go!”, “Thanks!”, “Next station.”, “That’s it.” When they were done, everyone briefly unmuted ourselves so that they could hear our applause.

During the question and answer session, Asil and Burak admitted that giving a concert online isn’t the same experience as in person, but that if they were able to transmit a bit of energy to us, they are happy. They are taking the pandemic as an opportunity to slow down and be creative, giving this time to writing new songs and recording in the studio. They hope to reach a global audience with their new album and music videos, but they also look forward to being able to perform live again, to getting together with the neighborhood kids, and to teaching hip-hop to children again. “Music is a tool,” Burak explained, “to communicate with youth across the world.”

I had asked my students to consider what is lost and what is gained in sharing live music through Zoom during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although it wasn’t the collective effervescence that artists and audience members often experience at a live hip-hop concert, this virtual experience offered a rare chance to get to know the artists and created a kind of intimacy that large concerts do not. In written responses that my students later submitted, some admitted that they found the experience awkward and didn’t feel comfortable turning on their cameras. But many others expressed positive responses. One student wrote, “It really solidified for me the idea that music is truly universal, and good music can be recognized no matter what language it may be in. This presentation made me understand just how powerful music is.” Another wrote, ” I most likely never would have had the opportunity to hear Tahribad-i Isyan perform live, so it was a special experience! I think one perk of seeing performers perform virtually is that there is less spectacle; the performances are more ‘stripped down’ and audiences are able to appreciate the talent and passion of the musicians even more because they are able to put out committed and skilled performances without having as much crowd energy off of which to play.” And one student concluded, simply, “Just like this virus, music is universal.”

(See the Archives page for the Zoom video recording and event transcript. If you would like access to the PowerPoint presentation, please email vader.6@osu.edu).

“There Is No Prize at the End of the Movement”: Master Class with Alon Karniel, November 2, 2020

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There are few things that feel satisfying or like good translations for connecting with people in our Covid-circumscribed videoconferencing world. But on November 2, 2020, we were thrilled when participants in Audiences and Online Reception experienced a connective Internet-kinesthetic experience during dance artist Alon Karniel’s master class in The Feldenkrais Method®. This somatic practice, developed by Russian-Israeli movement theorist Moshe Feldenkrais, focuses on practitioners heightening their attention to small actions in their bodies through minimal effort to foster sensitivity, being in the moment, and a pleasant experience. Karniel guided us through an Awareness Through Movement® Feldenkrais session on Zoom, and then answered questions about what it has been like to be a working artist during the pandemic. His instruction midway through class, as we coordinated the biomechanics of sliding one palm against the surface of the opposite thigh that itself was wrapped around the other leg, “There is no prize at the end of the movement,” reminded us to attune fully to the moment. Taking a proverbial step back, this instruction to do a thing fully bolsters our reserve against other encounters that come. This moment reminded me of dance theorist Ann Cooper Albright’s discussion about how somatic practices can train us for social justice.

Even though I was lying on a mat in my living room by myself, I felt as though Karniel was right there with me, his instructions so clear and themselves so kinesthetically descriptive that it felt like we were in the same room together. When he gave guidance to the group, I felt the attentive presence of the other people in the class with me as well. Some of the questions we are asking in Audiences and Online Reception are about “after Covid.” While many aspects of dancing and audiencing have not made satisfying transitions to the screen, it was gratifying to feel that Karniel’s Feldenkrais class did, with the ease and release of effort that he stressed in doing the biomechanical sequences. After Covid, we are going to make choices in our hybrid world. We will choose to return to doing some things in person, and we will choose to continue doing some things online. One of the possibilities that Covid has created, paired with the development of videoconferencing technology, is that we can be connected to Karniel in Tel Aviv and take his class there from our internet portal in Ohio, during and after the pandemic.

During Covid, Karniel is teaching, rehearsal directing, and working with students in Haifa and Jerusalem in addition to his home base in Tel Aviv. Israel has gone through patterns of lockdowns and openings, lockdowns and openings since March 2020. This rollercoaster of allowances and restrictions specifically pertaining to theaters have deeply affected Karniel’s teaching work. During the discussion session after his class, Karniel described the effort to bring a dance to performance that he had worked on staging with students for nearly a year. First they were going to perform in a theater with an in-person audience; then without the audience and without the dancers being able to touch or be close to each other; then in a studio with an in-person audience; then in a studio without an audience. Finally, they were allowed to perform the work without any audience members in the studio space, so they filmed it. Karniel mentioned the extra effort it took to rechoreograph the movement patterns to comply with the no-touch, no-partnering restrictions, then to transform a dance made for a theatrical stage to a studio space, and then again still for the camera. Karniel’s experiences are common across Israeli theatrical dance companies during the pandemic thus far. Dance writer Deborah Friedes Galili discussed what it felt like to experience a studio performance of Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv during the narrow window in which Israeli restrictions briefly lifted so that audiences could attend dance performances: the excitement of being kinesthetically together again, and the anxiety about virus transmission. As we look toward what this landscape may turn out to be, the potential for remaining connected through practices like Feldenkrais and Karniel’s teaching offer possibilities for navigating this as-yet uncertain future.

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!”

Event Announcement // Institute for Dunham Technique Certification (IDTC) Lecture-Discussion and Master Class

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Institute for Dunham Technique Certification // Lecture-Discussion and Master Class

“Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID” is delighted to host the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification (IDTC) for a two-part series on Tuesday, October 20th and Thursday, October 22nd from 5:20-6:35 p.m. (ET) via Zoom.

Tuesday, October 20th // Lecture-Discussion with Penny Godboldo

Join Penny Godboldo for the presentation “Survival/Resilience in Challenging Times Through the Wisdom of the Katherine Dunham Technique: A Way of Life.” This presentation will view our response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, the Black Lives Matter Movement, this divisive Election Season and the sense of isolation that permeates life in the U.S.A. today. Through the Dunham Technique, a comprehensive experience we can understand the wisdom of viewing life through the Mind/Body/Spirit experience and most importantly through the lens of Movement—the ultimate Black Experience.

Thursday, October 22nd // Dunham Technique Master Class with Rachel Tavernier

Master Teacher Rachel Tavernier will lead a Dunham Technique master class on Thursday, October 22nd. Dunham Technique is a vibrant African American dance form that engages the body, mind and spirit! Created by dance pioneer Katherine Dunham, the technique is informed by the traditional dances of the African Diaspora, as well as by modern and ballet. Dunham Technique creates strong, dynamic dancers who embody rhythm and grace. Classes in DT offer a variety of experiences, including breathing, isolations, floor work, barre work and progressions across the floor. In this class, dancers will learn the foundational movement of the Dunham Technique and will explore the intersection of Dunham technique and high-spirited, folkloric-inspired movement.

Event Information

Tuesday, October 20th // 5:20-6:35 p.m. (ET)

Lecture Registration—Open to the general public

Registration Deadline: Tuesday, October 20th at 12 p.m. (ET)

 

Thursday, October 22nd // 5:20-6:35 p.m. (ET)

Master Class Registration—Open to Ohio State Department of Dance students, faculty, and invited guests

Registration Deadline: Thursday, October 22nd at 12 p.m. (ET)

Learn more about the Institute for Dunham Technique Certification, Penny Godboldo, and Rachel Tavernier by visiting the “Presenters” page.

Photography credits (right-to-left): Bree Gant; courtesy of Rachel Tavernier.

Hip-Hop in the Time of COVID-19

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Members of Tahribad-ı İsyan stand looking at the camera.

Photo courtesy of Tahribad-ı İsyan

My participation in this project is a continuation of my long-term fieldwork with dislocated Roma (“Gypsies”) in Istanbul, Turkey, particularly a young Turkish Roma hip-hop group called Tahribad-ı İsyan, which formed in response to an aggressive urban renewal project that demolished their neighborhood in 2010 (see https://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/turkey-tahribad-i-isyans-rap-rebellion). They have since been outspoken against Turkey’s urbanization policies and treatment of ethnic minorities. Turkish hip-hop artists are increasingly experiencing government censorship, yet these two young men continue to rap about social injustice. YouTube has become a prominent way to share their music and music videos online, in Turkey and beyond; music can be a means of expressing what is too dangerous to say on social media. Despite rapping the lyrics in Turkish, Tahribad-ı İsyan sees their audiences growing as their music circulates beyond Turkey. This opens up new questions about the simultaneous limitations and opportunities afforded by our current circumstances.

On November 13, 2020, at 9:30-11:30am EST, Tahribad-ı İsyan will offer a virtual concert on Zoom, followed by a question and answer session with the audience. Preceding the concert will be a presentation by Turkish activist, Funda Oral, about the origins of the group and their social impact. The direct experiences that the members of Tahribad-ı İsyan have had with displacement and their recent experiences with quarantine will serve to prompt important discussions about forced mobility and immobility, the role of technology in mediating the local and the global, and ethical concerns around censorship and personal safety in times of conflict and crisis. Additionally, I hope that this event with Tahribad-ı İsyan could forge new connections between OSU and Columbus’s own growing hip-hop scene, particularly regarding the role that local music plays in challenging displacement and marginalization as we consider what kind of city we want to develop and live in together.

The event is open to the public. It is also directed to my current students in TURK3350: Contemporary Issues in Turkey; SOC3200 Sociology of Immigration; and SOC3302 Technology and Global Society.

Event Announcement // Feldenkrais Method® Master Class with Alon Karniel

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Alon Karniel Master Class Announcement consists of two images. Karniel stands against a white wall wearing and blue and black stripped shirt. Karniel leans forward arms to the right high diagonal. He is wearing all red.

Headshot photography by Rosen-Jones. Dance photography by Natasha Shakhnes.

Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID is pleased to announce it will host Alon Karniel for a Feldenkrais Method® master class on Monday, November 2nd from 8:30 AM-10:00 AM (ET) via Zoom. This free event is open to the public and will feature a question-and-answer session moderated by Dr. Hannah Kosstrin, Associate Professor of Dance. No prior experience necessary.

About the Master Class

The Feldenkrais Method is a somatic approach to education and self-inquiry developed by Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais (1904-84), a renowned Israeli physicist, engineer and Judo master. In a group class, or Awareness Through Movement® lesson, the teacher verbally guides students through a particular movement sequence. These movements are performed with minimal effort, as easily and pleasantly as possible, with the aim of heightening kinesthetic sensitivity and improving the ability to detect differences so that the finer details of the self and surroundings can be better sensed. In this way, people effectively learn to become aware of what they are doing (as opposed to what they say or think they are doing), let go of unnecessary efforts and mobilize their intention into action.

Event Information

Feldenkrais Method® Master Class with Alon Karniel

Monday, November 2, 2020

8:30 AM – 10:00 AM (ET)

Registration for this Zoom event is required. Please fill-out the RSVP form by Friday, October 30th to receive the Zoom event link.

Learn more about Karniel by visiting the “Presenters” tab.

Dancing through the Pandemic, Jewishly

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Theatrical dance artists’ work conditions changed overnight when COVID-19 shuttered theaters and canceled tours. These changes affect how audiences access and understand dance. My work in Audiences and Online Reception: Before and After COVID focuses on Jewish and Israeli choreographers’ experiences of COVID-19: how lockdowns during the pandemic affected and continue to affect reception to their work; how they maintain mobility online or in other ways when they are stuck in place or their movement is otherwise restricted; and what they foresee and hope for the future.

The research I pursue with this grant supports my current book project on Jewish choreographers who circulated between the Americas and the Middle East through migrations, dance touring, and intercultural collaborations between the 1950s and the 2020s. Central to my project are Jewish choreographers in cultural minorities and Jewish interracial, intercultural, and LGBTQ+ contexts in concert dance. I examine how the reception to these choreographers’ work in print newspaper reviews and online determined how audiences understood them. I show how Jewish choreographers’ work from diverse backgrounds engenders what I call “kinesthetic peoplehood,” a transnational phenomenon wherein people feel connected to or estranged from a diasporic community through bodily practices. Divergent reception to these artists’ work across national contexts, particularly in COVID-19 shifts from the theater to the screen and re-conceptions about how audiences can come together around dance performances, generates transnational narratives stratifying the Jewish diaspora.

I am excited to welcome dance artists for online events during the 2020–2021 academic year. These events are open to the Ohio State community and to the general public. The artists will share some of their work and talk with students and community members about what it has been like to be a working artist during the coronavirus pandemic. First up is Alon Karniel, who will give a Feldenkrais Method® master class on November 2 and discuss his experiences working in Israel during the pandemic. Stay tuned for details on this and other upcoming events!