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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.

“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).

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!”

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.