Working from home as a dancer
"Work from home" is currently a commonly heard term and the new 'norm' in our daily lives. The whole world is affected - economically, socially and even politically as this current situation allows the citizens of each country to see how their leaders handle the situation.
A lot has to be thought through when one's company switches to "work from home", and I believe the Arts especially in dance, is one that is heavily affected among the many occupations out there that relies on human interaction and physical movements.
Personally, working from home isn't fully new to me, as on some occasions where I have got a longer holiday I would do some strengthening and conditioning exercises at home. However, one big challenge would be to maintain my cardiovascular condition as there are limited aerobic exercises that I could do at home, and up till today, I am still exploring means to do so.
Here are some things that I have been doing these past few weeks that I found helpful as a dancer and also, someone who is part of the community dealing with all these new changes in our daily lives.
#1 Conditioning and Strengthening Exercises
One that is quite straight forward is to continue moving and training through conditioning and strengthening exercises. Although I already have a few exercises that I have been doing on a daily basis before company class, I thought that it would be a good idea to re-look at them and also maybe update my list of exercise by doing some research. Now, with many other dancers also working from home, they often share their knowledge and what they do in order to stay in shape. On top of my usual set of exercises, I have different focuses during the week and it will be categorised into 2 separate sets of exercises where I would alternately on a daily basis throughout the week.
#2 Home-friendly Ballet barre and centre
Limited space in our homes, proves to be a challenge for dancers around the world, especially if we would like to do some centre work. Furthermore, with the whole family now also working from home, there is even lesser space for a dancer who is living with their family to work from home. Our profession mainly consist of rehearsals and daily classes, so I tried to incorporate some home-friendly ballet classes into my routine. After a few sessions, I realised there is only so much that I could do due to the type of floor and it wouldn't be worth it if I were to just push myself blindly without considering the risks that are present in my current work space.
Despite all of these, one big advantage of having the whole dance world working from home is having all the dancers in various big companies as well as retired professionals or current Artistic Directors stepping out to give classes and share their knowledge. If not because of this current situation, there probably wouldn't be another time where these valuable opportunities such as free live streaming of performances and classes taught by dancers from from various companies would surface again. I guess even in a situation where the whole society is affected, we would still come together to create ways that would bring and provide hope to the community. Maybe with the current situation where everyone one has to be at home, more people would turn to the Arts as a way to keep themselves busy and entertained at home. Hopefully, at the end of this whole global situation, there would be an increase in arts patrons.
#3 Spending some quality family time and having that "work-life balance"
As mentioned above, not only dancers now are being "locked" at home and required to work from home, it is the whole world except for those who are working in essential services. This period, hopefully lasting only 1 month, maximum 2 months, isn't just a period for us to keep working as I believe it is also a time for us to spend some quality time with our family. For me personally, I am currently unexpectedly back home in Singapore, I told myself to cherish this time with my family while it last because we really wouldn't know what might happen the next moment. Since December my family and I weren't expecting me to be back during my Spring break, this made me realised how unpredictable life can be.
For many, especially office workers, we have brought our stress from work as well as the "cult of productivity", an idea shared by Yeo Boon Ping (2020), from the office back into where we should be in comfort and be relaxing.
This current situation required us even as dancers, to have a better work-life balance as now parts of our life are now forbidden to take place and our work is now being mixed into a place where we would be resting. And, with social media being a place where we consistently visit as well as the idea of coming out of this isolation period with something new - for example, a new skill or hobby, I found myself comparing myself even more with my peers and also judging my own productivity based on what my peers have accomplished through what they have posted online.
< Worth a read >
Instagram post by @julietburnett
Article written by Yeo Boon Ping
"We’re Living Through A Pandemic. Stop Feeling Guilty For Not Being “Productive"
#4 Self-reflecting and observing
Although there are many online classes and platforms available to support dancers who are working from home, I found that filming myself especially during this period to be very helpful. Now that I am solely on my own, working from home and only having myself to rely on, one way to improve is to film and re-watch myself. This would allow me to reflect on my dancing not just through my bodily sensations while I dance but also visually how I look when I am dancing.
Also, with these recordings, I could also take this opportunity to work on my online profile via my social media account. This is to allow me to still stay in connect with my online network, and possibly also creating new networks and relationships with other dancers.
Even though this period is affecting our daily lives massively, it also allows us to look at things from another perspective. And for dance and the performing arts, it also allow things that used to seem "exclusive" and "special" to now be accessible to the wider dance community. Although I do miss rehearsing and preparing to go on stage, I think the best is to make the most out of the current period in whatever ways possible in order to go back to our daily lives stronger, be it mentally or physically.
Great post! The dancing from home has certainly been a challenge. It did result in more family-time which is lovely, but was difficult and infuriating sometimes when there wasn't enough space! I am grateful that studios are open to do to classes now in London. But who knows.... another lockdown might lead the studios to close again!
ReplyDeleteHi Serina! Having to dance at home was definitely something to get use to, great to hear that studios in London are once again accessible. Hope we won't need to dance at home again!
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