The Dance Center’s Dance Buffet wrapped up last week and I want to celebrate and thank everyone who helped make it possible. Thank you to our incredible individual donors who really came through and our foundation partners who allowed for flexibility as we re-imagined our programming. Thank you to everyone who attended, helped shape the buffet table, and most especially to all of the artists who taught classes or shared their work.
Between mid-September and mid-November 2020, we presented 37 live events, ranging from discussion groups to improvisation workshops to technique classes. These were small-scale events, intentionally designed to preserve as many aspects of liveness and presence as possible. Attendance ranged between 4 people and 100 people.
Artists Nejla Yatkin and Enki Andrews discuss The Other Witch with Ginger Farley and audience members.
We did two production residencies in partnership with Chicago Dancemakers Forum and the Performance Response Journal, with Jumaane Taylor and Nejla Yatkin. We did three virtual residencies with Kierah King, Sara Zalek, and Jenn Freeman. Jenn used her residency to support the creation of The Brown Pages, Edition xxiv, to accompany part 3 of her film LITANY. (More sharing from the residencies of Kierah and Sara will be coming soon!) 28 artists taught or shared or led an activity and we hope these offerings were a source of nourishment for everyone present. (If you attended the Dance Buffet and haven’t yet filled out our very short survey, you can do so here.)
We experimented with pricing and ticketing systems, with activities intended primarily for BIPOC students offered on a sliding scale, at the suggestion of staff member Alyssa Gregory. As our box office was temporarily closed due to the pandemic and lack of live performances, we appreciate everyone’s patience as we tried to create new systems for ticketing with little experience in the area.
Early in the pandemic, led by staff member Jane Jerardi, we created the Video Archives Access Project – for our own students and others across the country as curriculums shifted online. This project featured 21 full-length videos from the Dance Center archives and was live for several months.
Jumaane Taylor teaches a virtual masterclass
Before the Dance Buffet launched, we hosted a discussion on Instagram Live about the challenges and opportunities of taking dance class online with local choreographer Erin Kilmurray, and an alumni happy hour to celebrate our new grads and connect with our alumni community. We hosted a fundraiser and supply drive for Brave Space Alliance. We experimented with a very small, socially distanced outdoor dance film screening.
All of these experiences are shaping how we think about our operations and programming into the future, as we plan for continuing our work during a pandemic and striving to be an anti-racist space. What would reparations look like for a cultural organization in a deeply segregated city? How can the Dance Center be more effectively engaged in fighting oppression? How can we link our practices with others for more impact? For me personally, how can I translate my thoughts and feelings into concrete actions and decentering my own privileges and power? This series of dialogues is happening on many different levels at the Dance Center, among faculty, students, and staff. I’m grateful for all the labor and effort that has gone into Creating New Futures and We See You, White American Theater and also here and hungry for conversations. If you have thoughts or ideas or questions, I’m available at echenoweth@colum.edu.
We’ll be announcing our spring programming early in the new year, and we hope that you’ll join us as we continue sharing contemporary dance artists making work that connects us and helps us process the current moment or spurs us to envision better possibilities.
Department chair Lisa Gonzales takes Jumaane’s virtual masterclass from her office
