SPACE, FREEDOM & SELF-EXPRESSION
kinesthesia, touch
After nearly two years of dancing at home, dancers expressed feelings of freedom and of embracing the spaciousness of the studio. In this case, it was the introduction of touch in the home studios, rather not wanting to touch items or other elements. Their descriptions of their small spaces included awareness that they might bump into the walls, countertops, furniture or other things in the room that restricted their ability to move in their usual ways. The home environments restricted their abilities to truly experience kinethesia, typically described as the inability to expand or take up space through their dancing.
One type of knowledge produced from dancing and moving through space is of self-expression and as being connected to their own body - an embodied knowledge of themselves. Dancers likened the experience of ballet to meditation practices and the experience of being present to the moment and to themselves - undistracted from everyday stressors or distractions. The demanding technique in ballet means that a dancer must be thinking about and connecting with their entire bodies to execute steps with precision. The spaciousness of the studio enables movements that are more expressive and freeing, which provide the dancer the ability to connect mind and body in such a way as they are not thinking about anything other than the movement (rather than walls, furniture, etc.).
Especially for amateur dancers, the ability to move or to “actually dance” is a way to express their identity as a dancer, unique to their professional identity or identity as parent, or otherwise. This was often experienced as an absence of connection to themselves and to the other dancers they looked forward to training with each class. Dancers cited missing the feeling of dancing together. The feeling of synchronisation with the other dancers contributed to the feeling of freedom and reinforced the identity as a dancer when experienced as part of a company or ensemble. The sense of connection to their company-mates that was not felt on Zoom, even if they could see that their fellow dancers were all doing the same steps.
Dancers prefer the studio experience where they are able to move beyond the restrictions of their at-home spaces. At home, dancers reported being disrupted by low or eave ceilings, avoiding countertops and furniture, or curious pets who wanted to dance along. Additionally, as homes doubled as home offices and home studios, the dancers found it much harder to disconnect from their work and immerse themselves in ballet - an activity that was “me time”, something they did just for themselves. It was harder to disconnect from their work or at-home selves.
From the perspective of the teacher and choreographer, the spatial constraints meant having to be creative in creating combinations of movements that would work in more restricted environments. When everyone was dancing at home, this meant working out movements and training that could be done in the average 2m by 2m spaces. However, now that studios are offering hybrid classes, the teachers are encouraged to modify exercises given to the at-home students to accommodate for their lack of space. At home dancers reported watching in envy as dancers in the studio could make bigger movements, extend their arms and legs fully and leap across the floor.
Hybrid classes have sustained as some students are not yet able to return to the studio for personal reasons. Additionally, some amateur students have moved out of London and enjoy the hybrid offering as it enables them to continue to dance without having to commute into the city. This continuity of the online dance experience provides anthropologists with the ability to continue the study of movement in home environments, the impact on the dancers’ self-expression, and to perhaps contribute to informing future technological innovations in the field of remote dancing.