Online Dance classes? Never say Never.

I am a big fan of 3 dimensions. I love the human form in motion in shared time and space. I have been asked before if I would ever do an online classes and my resounding answer was always, “No, way”

Well, I am eating my words. Dance has found another way to expand my definition of what it can be and what it can do. This forced expansion into the cyberworld is much better than I would have thought.

I had an inkling of this when my friend Greg Oh convinced me to choreograph a piece in Halo about 10 years ago. Halo is a video game that requires players to log in to the game and roam through cyberspace in an armoured avatar. Normally they just shoot at each other but in our “ballet” the dancers login and perform choreography together. I was at first adverse to the idea. But then, as the rehearsals began and I figured out how the game worked, it was FUN- the driving composition by Aaron Gervias and the enthusiasm of the dancers as they pirouetted with their mouse pads. The chunky avatars lifted each other into the air. It was performed live in real time and it was exciting. The dancers’ spirits were alive in the performance in cyberspace.

It wasn’t the SAME but it was something.

 

That is what I am realizing again with online classes. It is NOT the same, but it’s something. It is a different way to connect, but it is a way to connect. In online dance classes you get to use your own body (no avatar required) and the technology to join in is readily available.   Moving your body is so important right now. I do believe that dance can save us. Connecting us to mind, body and spirit to move forward as best we can.

Real time, real people, dancing. Together.

Come join me or any of the other many dancers and choreographers out there who are offering online joy, movement and connection.  My classes are on my website. www.upwardspiral.me

Pay what you can.

Dance on.

Onward and upward.

Love and light,

Julia