Grateful For Our Silver Linings
“When I look back at this year, like so many other people, it most definitely wasn’t the year I had planned at the beginning of 2020 both personally and professionally.”
Let me start off by saying that most of 2019 was spent on laying out our business plan for danceCREATE - our vision and mission statements, core values and strategies for the coming year.
We started 2020 off full of optimism and strategy! We held our most successful open class ever in February that lifted our morale even higher as we filled our classes, planned to launch others, and booked events well into the year. And then with a blink of an eye when Covid hit
and all was gone. Everything halted and then all the cancellations started pouring in. The present and the future was marked with uncertainty and all looked very bleak.
The first silver lining for me came in at my darkest hour… I felt a calmness come over me, love filled my heart and a feeling of reassurance that I was not alone and that everything would be all right. To me it was the presence of God. The next day I received an unexpected card in the mail from my friend and danceCREATE advisor team member, Kim Weiss, and her husband Allan, full of heartfelt encouragement, love, and support to keep the faith and not give up. That taught me to truly never underestimate the power of kindness. From there, our other core team member Leah Zeiger stepped in with all her support, commitment, and expertise and the three of us put our heads together and began to reorganize and plan. I am beyond grateful for these two special ladies in my life!
Through all the chaos and changes I felt it was most important to embrace my sense of purpose and our commitment to our community even more and to create an even stronger base from which to operate from for myself, our team and our danceCREATE community.
As I look back now, I can see how we never lost sight of and in fact strengthened our vision and mission as danceCREATE creating a safe supportive space where art can occur for everyone and a source of stabilization and community for many. Another silver lining.
Right off I had a sudden opportunity to learn Zoom in one weekend at The New York Film Academy where I’ve had the great pleasure to teach part time for the past 10 years, as we were to take our classes online that Monday. Technology has never been my strength, but we all came together as a faculty and administration, helped one another, struggled, laughed, and cried at the process of taking a sharp left turn right into our achilles heel. But we did make it through and discovered how to be more creative and innovative with our courses, the Zoom technology and finding many advantages to teaching our courses online and most importantly to be there for our students!
This inspired me in how to proceed with danceCREATE. I quickly acclimated the Zoom platform to our company from setting up meetings and getting the rest of the team onboard with Zoom. Looking at how we could best serve our current community and branch out to help others. Understanding that people were going to have to deal with the sudden shock of the pandemic.
We came up with the Stretch and Strengthen class where people could come together, breathe, start to move, strengthen their bodies and minds, and have community. We adjusted our Dance Basics Boot Camp, created some really fun videos with our students and added another online workshop called Let's Create where we created and supported each other through the pandemic. And finally, we added our Actor's Movement intensive to the online experience!
During this time, we expanded our team greatly! We were able to reconnect with the wonderful Jamie Mann who has been a longtime friend and danceCREATOR along with the gifted Shey Flowers. Both who reside in different states and who stage manage our classes. Helping to enhance our community with their good cheer and care and making sure that each class runs smoothly and efficiently. James Thomas, our incredible video editor, Rosemarie Li, our steadfast and cheerful stage manager, Adrienne Woody, our talented and savvy finance manager, and our wonderful communications, social media, and branding interns Esther Lian, Katherne Jain, Isabella Tse, and Sophia Lee. A big silver lining - to have such an amazing team of very creative, collaborative, and powerful artists committed to and bringing their special talents to growing and forwarding our company's vision and mission!
We also began to make connections with the broader art community. Jeff Slayton of the LA Dance Chronicle and I connected. Jeff was so generous with his time, and the article ended up being very in-depth and took the reader through my whole life story as well as the founding of danceCREATE. I was also asked to be a guest on Deedee O’Malley’s Youtube series, “The Lemonade Maker”, which was an incredible and unforgettable experience.
I would be remiss in not mentioning that when the Black Lives Matter protests happened I was deeply challenged.. feeling outraged, greatly saddened, and helpless. Not knowing how to help, I sat dejected on my couch, when I got a phone call from one of my students, Tanayi Seabrook, who was organizing with some others a peaceful protest by artists in front of The Academy of Motion Pictures, asking for my help. She explained that there would be an open mic and a space for song, dance, spoken word - a space where artists could peacefully express themselves. What she felt would be powerful was if all these artists could do a movement piece where they all could move and express themselves together. She asked if I would facilitate a movement exercise called diamonds, that I do in my class, at the protest. I immediately said yes!
Not knowing how this was going to happen, I just knew if I could be of help in some way, I wanted to go. The experience was life changing for me on so many levels. It was indeed a peaceful protest that grew and grew in attendance with heartfelt artists expressing themselves in their art of choice. So much love filled this block in Beverly Hills. What I had thought was going to be a small group of people on the sidewalk to my amazement turned out to be close to 1,500 people on Wilshire Blvd. My movement exercise was to be the final expression culminating into a group chant and song. I really had no idea how this was going to be received let alone happen as the biggest group I've done this with was about 45 people. All I can say is that I was greeted with so much love and in a flash I saw myself sitting on my couch feeling helpless the week before to that moment I could see that I could do something to be of help, and that people wanted my help, and it blew my mind how far I'd come in just a week! In that moment I felt my heart open. I looked over the crowd and I saw all these wonderful and open artists ready and wanting to participate, and I knew something bigger than I alone was taking over. In that moment I knew I was doing God's work. Truly. It all came together so fast, the music started and it was epic in only a way as artists can do! To see this city block of artists move, express and feel together was beyond powerful! Unity and hope was the message that filled my heart, and from what I observed, everyone else that was there, too! If there was ever a doubt in me about the power, value and the worthiness of the artist and the path we travail in that moment I was revitalized and rehabilitated. I only wish more people could have witnessed the whole protest. Silver lining!!
Our community during this pandemic has come together and trusted in one another to create a safe and supportive space during an unprecedented time.
We’ve been full of admiration for others and oneself. We have seen us all improve conditions in our lives, from forming new friendships, bettering our health and wellness, shedding pounds, inches, aches and pains, sharing much needed laughs, improving our danceability and expression, our posture and vitality, flexibility, strength and stamina. We’ve strengthened our commitment to care for ourselves and to show up - even when we didn't feel like it. All in all, even though 2020 wasn’t what anyone was expecting, we as a danceCREATE community have been able to find countless silver linings, and we’ve continued to uphold our commitment to create a safe and supportive space where art can occur for everyone!
Looking forward:
We are excited to share a small window of what is to come in the new year! We will be continuing our lineup of online classes - Dance Basics Boot Camp, Stretch + Strengthen, Actor’s Movement Workshop - and also add a few more classes to our online roster - a new iteration of Let’s Create, the Intro level of the Dance Basics Boot Camp, and more! We will be looking forward to fostering new programs and relationships with our corporate partners to facilitate corporateCREATE workshops, as well as further our expansion onto a global scale. As we are endlessly hopeful, we are also ready and able to maintain our flexibility and adaptability as the new year will undoubtedly bring surprises and challenges our way in regards to the future possibility of in-person classes.