BWW Blog: Dance Gala 2020 - It Started and Ended on Zoom

In early September, a group of seven dancers and University of Iowa Assistant Professor Melinda Myers met on a Zoom call to discuss creating her piece for the virtual performance of Dance Gala 2020 - In Motion. Not much was known besides the rehearsal schedule and the filming location, Hubbard Park, the street block size field in the heart of University of Iowa's campus. Intramural sports, bugs, wet grass, hot sun, and two giant holes shared the space that would become our stage, but we worked around the distractions thanks to our fearless leader and created "something we could do."

The dance is challenging, requiring full attention from the body and the mind, a much welcome distraction from the stress of living in a worldwide pandemic during a presidential election while the sky turns orange. A connection between the dancers as we work together to stay in time is necessary for the piece to be successful, for we recorded the number without any music in the background.

The product is shockingly authentic, filmed in one shot on an iPhone connected to a handheld tripod as a group of students play football nearby and the clouds overhead threaten to burst with rain. This authenticity is the true star of the piece, for the dance does not try to be perfect and instead embraces the imperfect circumstances under which this dance grew. "Something we could do" as a title puts the dance under two lenses. One is the idea that this dance could have been done on the stage in Hancher Auditorium, a stage on which the likes of Audra McDonald have performed. The other, the idea this piece of choreography could not have been done without the environment in which we have unusually staged this dance, with the rolling section halfway through calling for the extra cushion of the grass to be successful.

On Thursday, November 5th, another Zoom room was opened and occupied by the same choreographer and seven dancers for a preview of the dance with costumes and music. Everyone's excitement bursts through their square. As the piece ends, and everyone turns their screen back on, the smiles are somehow wider, and a sense of gratitude and pride fills our virtual space as we realize no, this is not the piece we thought we would perform when we filled out the form in the spring that served as our audition for Dance Gala 2020, but instead we created something true and fitting for this time. As the meeting ends, we are all reluctant to stop the Zoom, to officially close this chapter of our University of Iowa dance careers. The words "all good things must come to an end" have rarely rung so true, and I am excited to share this piece with our virtual audience on Friday, November 13th.

https://virtualdance.studio.uiowa.edu/dance-gala