Sydney Dance Company and Australian Ballet go online over coronavirus
They can’t set foot on the stage because of the health crisis, but that hasn’t stopped dance companies from taking their art online.
When Queensland Ballet artistic director Li Cunxin gathered his 60-strong dancers together last month to tell them the upcoming 60th-anniversary gala opening night and season were being postponed it was heartbreaking for everyone.
“Dancers work on their emotional, mental and physical preparation right up to the last minute, so telling them we can’t do it is like taking away an arm or leg.”
But within hours those same dancers started coming to him with myriad innovative ideas about what the company could offer audiences instead. It was a similar story across the country, with West Australian Ballet, the Australian Ballet and Sydney Dance Company all reporting dancers responding to the COVID-19 crisis in creative ways.
“We’ve shifted from crisis mode to looking at opportunities,” says WAB executive director Jessica Machin. “We’re in the creative arts for a reason: we’re flexible, resilient and able to troubleshoot. We’ve had to create an ideas board, the company has come up with so many, people have got excited about it.”
While the dance companies had continued working on-site with face-to-face classes and rehearsals (albeit in a vastly modified, ultra-hygiene-conscious way) all that changed following the Prime Minister’s directive that all non-essential services be shut down.
Fortunately, all had prepared contingency plans. From late March dancers at QB, SDC and the AB have been working from home, moving to online daily classes and rehearsals. This week the 39 WAB dancers also began working from home after the company shut its Maylands headquarters. Dancers were each given a piece of dancefloor matting known as “tarkett” which they’ll use for the daily morning Zoom dance class, while they have had tailored conditioning classes prepared by WAB’s physiotherapist.
At QB Li says the new day-to-day routine is continuing as normally as possible. “I’m teaching daily class, which we live-stream to dancers via their phones or TV so they can take class in their living rooms. Not just ballet, but fitness, pilates and strengthening. The dancers understandably were a bit down, they’ve dedicated their life to their art form and now we’re saying they can’t perform for a few months, but they’re a resilient group.”
It’s a similar story in Melbourne, where the AB had readied its company dancers and office staff for the inevitable shutdown. “The health team has put together personal programs for the dancers and we’ve been preparing online classes to stream each day,” says artistic director David McAllister.
The 77 dancers were able to return to their homes in various Australian states and the ACT before certain borders shut, each given a piece of tarkett for their daily class although finding a ballet barre has required some imagination. Principal artist Amber Scott can be seen on her Instagram account using a chair weighted down with potting mix as a makeshift barre. What’s really inspiring is the way each company is managing to find innovative approaches to this devastating situation. WAB’s in-house choreographic season, Genesis, due to open to the public in late March, still went ahead but behind closed doors. It was professionally filmed, however, and the company is exploring ways to release or broadcast it to the public soon.
Meanwhile, the dancers have suggested a raft of ideas, from digital biographies to Instagram takeovers on perfecting the ballet bun and YouTube clips demonstrating how to prepare pointe shoes; while their staff sports and dance psychologist will develop wellbeing videos for sharing.
“We’ve been talking for a long time as a company about digital engagement, so this is an opportunity for us to test those things, create more content and build connections,” Machin says.
The AB already has 14 cinematic-quality recorded performances which it will package up with behind-the-scenes content and additional interviews for At Home with Ballet TV and begin streaming on its free online channel, Ballet TV, from Sunday. The five-month digital season begins with McAllister’s The Sleeping Beauty, followed by two Prokofiev ballets (Alexei Ratmanksy’s Cinderella, and Graeme Murphy’s Romeo & Juliet), with Coppelia, Manon and Murphy’s Swan Lake among others to follow.
“Our focus is on engaging with our audience who are missing the ballet season, keeping the ballet buzz alive,” says McAllister, noting they won’t necessarily charge for content. “People have been fantastically supportive about donating back their ticket price, or transferring to later in the season, so we feel it’s a time to be generous and provide ballet for our audiences for as long as we can, and maybe even build audiences with this opportunity to see ballet.”
McAllister is also filming a five-part series of short “how to” ballet videos being released weekly on the company’s Facebook and Instagram channels, from how to perform a textbook plie to deconstructing the perennially tricky pirouette.
SDC too is broadcasting footage shot during the technical rehearsal of artistic director Rafael Bonachela’s new work, Impermanence, part of the triple bill Bonchela/Forsythe with William Forsythe that had been due to premiere in Sydney on March 23.
The Australian String Quartet’s recording of the score, composed by The National’s Bryce Dessner and intended to be performed live on stage, will also be released.
“It’s like a webcast of the opening night that wasn’t,” says executive director Anne Dunn. “Raf’s new work is incredibly timely, reflective of a world in crisis, and people can sit on their lounge and watch it with a glass of bubbles in their hand. We’re also working on other ideas of how we can share more of our beautiful work online in the coming months.”
As WAB prepares to move its public dance classes online, SDC’s virtual dance studio launched 10 days ago. The company is already offering 45 classes a week to the regular 1600 non-professional dancers who take weekly classes that are now available to anyone around the world, with plans for more classes to come. Prior to the COVID-19 crisis, dance classes accounted for around 15 to 20 per cent of revenue depending on the year, says Dunn.
Popular former dancer-turned rehearsal associate Charmene Yap teaches “Feel-good Friday”, for example, a fun high-energy dance class held Friday evenings with a different theme each week that company dancers also participate in, usually in dress-up. “You may not be dancing with your mates in the club but you can dance with your housemates in the dining room,” states the class description.
Current company dancers are now also teaching class from their living rooms, a privilege that would be impossible in real life due to their full-time jobs dancing. At $28 a week for unlimited access to dance styles ranging from Latin funk to strength and conditioning, it seems affordable and while, some single-ticket class attendees have dropped off, Dunn says they have picked up new members. This reporter took part in a beginners’ ballet class run by company dancer Jacopo Grabar, which was well attended, clearly taught, great fun and — best of all — resulted in a full 60 minutes without a mention or thought of coronavirus.
“We’re finding it’s an easier way for some people to try a class rather than actually plucking up the courage to walk into the studio and it’s fun seeing the micro images of people getting into it in their own homes but still having a sense of shared community,” says Dunn.
The crippling, ongoing financial repercussions for the dance sector and the entire Australian arts industry have been well documented and no one is pretending innovations such as the virtual dance studio are a silver bullet.
“Financial solvency is a massive issue, we were already in a disrupted state because we’re part-way through The Wharf redevelopment (home to SDC and other arts companies including Bangarra Dance Theatre) and incurring significant business disruption,” Dunn says. “But, while this has been devastating for the entire sector, we’ll also respond creatively and are innovating very quickly. Of course we hope (the virtual studio) will generate revenue but even if it doesn’t it’s about creating business connectivity and keeping people creatively engaged.”
The dance companies are in regular contact with one another, sharing information and ideas and supporting one another.
“We’d like to explore creative collaborative opportunities with companies in other sectors too, such as opera and orchestras. Now more than ever we need to work together as a wider sector,” says Li. “With any kind of challenge there’s always opportunity, if you open your mind.”
While all dance companies told Review they plan to reschedule cancelled seasons at a later date, for now the focus is on maintaining connection, keeping the public entertained and keeping hope alive. “The incredible thing about the arts is it’s such a connector,” says Machin. “It’s brought out the best in people.”
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