BWW Blog: Dorm Dance Days

When I was a little girl, I, like many other five-year-old dancers, flounced around my parent's living room in a tutu like it was my job. Back then, it felt like Lincoln Center. Last spring, when I moved back home following the closing of University of Iowa's campus due to Covid-19, it became my dance studio. It no longer felt like Lincoln Center. As quarantine continued, I came to ask myself questions like "why didn't I start drinking coffee earlier" so my 5'6" frame could move fuller out in the small studio created by moving the coffee table and a plant. I began counting down the days until I could return to the spacious dance studios in Halsey Hall on UIowa's campus.

At the end of August, the University of Iowa resumed in person classes. The return to Halsey Hall I looked forward to will not come this semester, for my class is dancing in the second floor ballroom at the Iowa Memorial Union, a beautiful, two-story space with rock hard floors, which any dancer knows means shin-splints. None-the-less, the space is my kryptonite. I look forward to the classes when I move spaciously six feet away from my peers. Soon after the start of the semester, our dance classes moved to a hybrid format so less students are in a space at one time. Every other day I attempt to do a ballet class in my similarly small sized dorm room, flexing my choreographer brain to modify movements to fit my small space. How do I make those days equally educational? The answer is quite simple, anatomy.

I am very fortunate to have two teachers this semester who concentrate on anatomy and have discovered that dorm room dance days are a gift. They provide space to concentrate on the fundamentals of a combination before taking it into the studio. Once in the studio, a more performance like version of the combination comes out. Because I took the time in my dorm room to find my center and find how much energy must go into each step to get on my center, this quality does not throw me off my balance and I can truly enjoy adding apaulement and be a bit more experimental, pushing for an extra pirouette or longer balance. For the first time in my dance career, my ballet shoes have holes in them (my feet are naturally flat as a pancake and not very strong, so this is something new) and I am discovering how best to maintain alignment without clenching muscles. So, to anyone dancing in their living room or dorm room, take this time to concentrate on your technique, for once we are all back in performance spaces, the technique and stability created during quarantine will shine through as we push our bodies well beyond where they've ever been out of pure excitement.