As it approaches a year since the beginning of the first UK-wide lockdown, how have student dancers coped and where are they now?

Dancers are struggling to connect in lockdown

Dancers have faced tremendous difficulties in recent months. The Arts have completely halted and professionals in the industry have been left jobless.

For students, dance before the pandemic provided great opportunities. Whether it was enhancing your physical skills for a professional career, staying fit, or making friendships, dance had countless benefits. And as the months have dragged on, it becomes clear that dancers want nothing more than to be back in the studios, and to be together.

Social distancing is a huge problem for dancers. It simply isn’t feasible for dancers to remain two metres apart while trying to carry out routines and produce the same quality of ensembles they would have without the lingering possibility of spreading Covid-19. So, dancers have been consistently on the receiving end of restrictions since March 2020, confining them to their homes and their laptop screens.

This experience is no exception for dancers at Queen’s. While there has been a significant number of new members to the dance society this academic year - despite the pandemic – leaders are very aware that there are many who haven’t met one another, in person or online.

Sarah Tunney, the QUB Dance President, says “For the dance team it has been very difficult to go on as normal due to the pandemic.”

So, while online platforms like Microsoft Teams and Zoom have been beneficial in keeping dancers dancing, they have limited the extent to which dancers can build and maintain strong connections with fellow dancers.

Financial troubles during lockdown have made the future of dance seem gloomy too.

Virtual connecting has played its part in the decline in revenue, which has been anxiety-inducing for leaders running QUB Dance. As the teams haven’t been able to meet since the beginning of the pandemic, they have struggled to generate crucial funding that would enable them to attend competitions in the future.

Where team leaders were once able to charge for classes without much trouble, charging for online classes during lockdown has not exactly seen the same response.

Team leaders even broadened their target audience in a bid to generate some amount of income for the club. The initial weeks of this university year saw QUB Dance offering classes for a small fee to all students where no previous dance experience was required (a cheap and enjoyable way for students to stay fit in lockdown!) But the classes stopped after only a few weeks due to little interest.

To make matters worse, the extension of restrictions further into December meant that the dance team couldn’t host their annual fundraising event Strictly Come Dancing – costing them an enormous chunk of annual funding.

Students involved in dance clubs at universities, unlike professional dancers, never received a wage before the pandemic, so it isn’t money in their own pockets that they miss from dancing. In normal circumstances they paid to attend classes. In return all they asked for was the ability to dance together. As the thought of a dancehall, studio, or stage seems a distant memory right now to many, dancers can only hope that the end is near for Covid-19.

For QUB Dance, fingers are crossed that they will at least get one chance to dance together before the academic year is over. The Inter-Varsity Dance competitions have moved online and been delayed in the hope that restrictions will ease, and students might be able to get together and record their routines, on stage or outside, to be shown at a virtual awards event in May. This would be a silver lining for dancers, and possibly the first opportunity many at Queen’s would have at meeting each other in person.

With no specific dates announced for Northern Ireland’s road map out of lockdown, there is a chance that dancers could get together before summer, whether that be indoors or outside. With money lacking, and dancers growing tired of virtual connecting, the only way forward is the hope of being able to dance together again.

Chloe Stewart is a History Masters student at Queen’s

LIFESTYLE - Virtual Connection isn't Enough for Dancers at Queen's