I think there’s something about having a December birthday that heightens my desire to look back at the end of the year - not only is the calendar moving on a year but I also gain a year in age all within the same fortnight as Christmas. This year there’s another anniversary thrown in to the mix - 24th December 2020 marks a year since I last performed live.
With this in mind, I have been thinking back on how I have shared my dancing since we locked down - I guess those who have most been party to still seeing me dance have been teachers of the classes I have attended over Zoom. Between March and May, to support visibility of these classes (and often at the request of those teaching) I filmed myself dancing the class movement phrases offered and was regularly sharing little snippets on my Instagram stories. While I have continued to attend online classes beyond this period, I have filmed and shared less for a myriad of reasons.
As we entered December, I realised that I wanted document some of my own sequencing of movement from this year. To capture a moment of my own making, to hold alongside all of the snippets I collected earlier in the year of wrapping my body around the movement pathways of others from their online classes. For this endeavour, I am extremely grateful that Two Thirds Sky offered me the opportunity to use their makeshift studio garage space - very much an upgrade from my carpeted daily living room dancing. Also, very much a reflection of the scenario that as a freelancer I am not yet back in the studios that I would have frequented regularly before March. While some companies, projects and training establishments may have been able to return with a lot of visibility of this re-emergence online, there are plenty of us for whom the limited easing of restrictions has still not allowed us to progress much beyond household living or garage spaces to host our moving bodies.
So this is why I’m sharing a little footage now - to mark a year since I last performed and to remind myself and anyone else who needs to see or hear it: that sharing your current reality is valid even if the nature of dancing at home is now less visible than it was in those first three months of lockdown. Also, I invite you to turn the sound on if possible to hear music improvised by Jaka Škapin - amidst the ongoing trials of the pandemic, it is a pleasure to remember that we can still connect, support and be supported by fellow creatives from a distance.