Sashaying and pirouetting within the confines of cramped off-campus rooms became the new normal for many Mount Holyoke dance majors in March 2020, when students were sent home because of COVID-19. While many classes functioned similarly enough to the on-campus experience, the dance department saw a significant shift in their classes. The studio space, which allows students and faculty to experience community and energy through movement, was now missing from dancers’ lives. During the pandemic, professors and students had to figure out how to recreate this sense of community in a virtual environment.
Second installment of ‘RACE and … Dance’ celebrates house dance
On Friday, Sept. 24, Five College Dance and Mount Holyoke Division of Student Life, Office of Community and Belonging and the campus Cultural Centers hosted the second session of “RACE and … Dance,” a three-part dance workshop hosted on Zoom. The event was designed to allow the general public to learn about and appreciate African diasporic cultures “whose contributions to contemporary dance are often underexplored,” according to the event’s Embark page.