LA-based choreographer Christine Suárez had to take her Dance for Veterans programme online during Covid. The results have helped her redefine how she sees dance.
My shoulder is aching. I’m going up the escalator at the Macy’s in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. My purse is weighed down with notebooks, a portable speaker, water bottle, and of course, snacks.
It’s March 2020. I’m teaching at the “Club WISE” program for older adults. I’m greeted warmly by a group of six women who, I’d guess, are mostly over 65. I’m told the group may be a little smaller than who registered, “The virus is keeping some people home.”
We set out to co-create a dance to Ravel’s “Boléro.” One woman excitedly pulls the album out of her purse. We listen to it and make a dance about surrender. Afterward, I want to hug everybody—but we know it’s best not to touch. I get back in my car. It’s drizzling a little bit—that typical Southern California March “rain”—as I head to a Santa Monica dance studio to teach 12- and 13-year-olds.
I’m busy—maybe too busy. But this is life as a dancer; it is a treadmill without an off switch. But I love the treadmill. Dancing was my lifeline growing up in an unsafe alcoholic home where I did not feel heard. Putting on “shows” in my parents’ backyard to the Grease soundtrack with my sister kept me alive... Keep reading on Zócalo Public Square.
My shoulder is aching. I’m going up the escalator at the Macy’s in the Baldwin Hills Crenshaw Plaza. My purse is weighed down with notebooks, a portable speaker, water bottle, and of course, snacks.
It’s March 2020. I’m teaching at the “Club WISE” program for older adults. I’m greeted warmly by a group of six women who, I’d guess, are mostly over 65. I’m told the group may be a little smaller than who registered, “The virus is keeping some people home.”
We set out to co-create a dance to Ravel’s “Boléro.” One woman excitedly pulls the album out of her purse. We listen to it and make a dance about surrender. Afterward, I want to hug everybody—but we know it’s best not to touch. I get back in my car. It’s drizzling a little bit—that typical Southern California March “rain”—as I head to a Santa Monica dance studio to teach 12- and 13-year-olds.
I’m busy—maybe too busy. But this is life as a dancer; it is a treadmill without an off switch. But I love the treadmill. Dancing was my lifeline growing up in an unsafe alcoholic home where I did not feel heard. Putting on “shows” in my parents’ backyard to the Grease soundtrack with my sister kept me alive... Keep reading on Zócalo Public Square.