Building a supportive network of global connections is at the core of Deeply Rooted Dance Theater. I was hired at Deeply Rooted in May 2020 as the company's individual giving manager, and have since come to hold the principles of the company as my own. We are a company dedicated to re-imagining the aesthetics of contemporary dance by uniting modern, ballet and African traditions in dance and storytelling. The company’s participation in JOMBA! has been critical to their achievement of that goal. 

Until Saturday, I hadn’t seen a live dance performance for five months and 14 days (not that I’m counting or anything). I would say it’s like riding a bike—in fact, a lot of things about attending Ballet 5:8’s new outdoor dance season were wholly ordinary. But the renewed novelty of live performance, which was so briskly and completely taken away last March, is not lost on me. Settling into an old routine with pen and pad, all I could really feel was an enormous sense of gratitude.

In normal times, Natya Dance Theatre (NDT) performs multiple times a year in various theaters in the Chicagoland area and teaches hundreds of students the art of bharatanatyam— in person—from studios in Chicago, Naperville and Downers Grove. These are not normal times. How does one of the most “critically acclaimed Indian dance companies in the United States” deal with a global pandemic? Like everyone else, they go virtual. “I’m not very well-versed in technological things,” said Hema Rajagopalan, NDT’s artistic director. Luckily, her co-artistic director (and daughter) Krithika is.

The Hyde Park School of Dance (HPSD) has been open on the South Side since 1993, but like most institutions, things look a little different this year. As a non-profit school, HPSD is governed by a board of directors, some of who are doctors at the University of Chicago. The impact of the coronavirus and rumors of the impending shutdown were discussed and the decision was made to close the school on March 14—a few days before an executive order issued by Gov. Pritzker closed all K-12 schools in the state.

I started listening to Phish again.

Phish was the first “cool” band I listened to. I grew up on classical and classic rock, feeling the equivalent weight and cultural relevance of Beethoven and the Beatles. It wasn’t until I started listening to Phish in high school that those two sonic worlds magically collided. I was totally hooked. Bad pun.

We are over five months into “shut down” due to the COVID-19 outbreak, precariously perched between Phase 3 and Phase 4 of re-opening. It was just announced that Chicago Public Schools will be fully remote for the start of the school year on Sept. 8 through the first quarter. The country is in full tilt mode where news alerts generate more questions than definitive answers. But there is a silver lining in all this pandemic uncertainty: the dance community has shifted, adjusted and gotten creative to keep things moving.