Article Features SCB: Dance studios and gym teach online due to COVID-19
Southern California Ballet Co-Artistic Director Martha Leebolt teaching an interactive Zoom class due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dance studios and gym teach online due to COVID-19
Pomerado News Chieftain
by Elizabeth Marie Himchak
The COVID-19 stay-at-home orders have impacted numerous aspects of daily life, including suspension of extracurricular activities.
But some local dance and gymnastics studios are turning to technology to keep students physically active.
Providing online interactive video classes has come with challenges and required modifications. Kitchen counters have become ballet barres and pirouettes are not possible on carpet or slippery floors. But the fundamentals plus strengthening and flexibility exercises are still possible, say local instructors.
“Dancers are making it work,” said Martha Leebolt, co-artistic director of Southern California Ballet. “They are finding ways ... and we are really proud of them.”
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Immediately upon learning Poway Unified School District was suspending classes, SCB faculty started filming themselves doing components of their classes’ syllabuses on March 13. The videos were uploaded on a website so students could practice at home. On March 23, they added live classes via Zoom and now most teachers film from their homes, Leebolt said, with only she and her husband, Toby Batley, filming in the studio. As they got more became familiar with the technology’s capabilities, teachers offered corrections based on what they saw students doing during interactive sessions.
The studio’s offerings include freestyle, hip hop and tap and each style comes with challenges at home, she said. Leebolt and Batley (SCB co-artistic director) have their professional contacts in England and Canada, plus local guest artists, guest teaching classes to vary experiences.
“It is something different,” Leebolt said. “Zoom offers a platform to feature different teachers at different times.”
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Leebolt said SCB’s “Alice in Wonderland” production was postponed three weeks before its April 4-5 debut in the PCPA. It had nearly 60 students, ages 8 to graduating seniors, finalizing choreography.
“We are hoping to reschedule because the dancers worked so hard,” Leebolt said. “We were in the middle of finishing up and got the costumes. It is a brand new production and choreography.”
Knowing some families are experiencing financial constraints, SCB offered to cut March tuition in half and now charges a greatly reduced tuition, she said. “A few families have withdrawn for a number of different reasons ... but most of the families have stuck with us because they see the benefits of (continuing to dance),” she said, adding SCB also has “so many amazing families still paying the full tuition.”
She said parents sent emails thanking them for the online classes since their children are stuck at home with limited physical activity opportunities.
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Leebolt said this experience has created the possibility of offering master classes with students in the studio and instructors far away in the future. While online does not replace the experience of an in-person class, the pandemic has opened up future options not considered previously.