Audiences and Online Reception Final Project Trailer

“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

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?

The Relevance of Katherine Dunham in Times of Uncertainty

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

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.