By Palina Yamkavaya, Staff Writer
While some clubs might have paused their activity for the time of the pandemic, that wasn’t the case for the Dance Club. Even though their last performance, Ornithology: Patterns in Flight, took place in early February of last year, the club is going strong finding alternative ways to engage with its members.
Professor Lynn Needle, founder and artistic director of the Art of Motion Inc., was asked to join the club as an advisor to explore possible club activities while dance classes were suspended. “I spent last semester exploring interests and learned there are dancers on campus who expressed interest in becoming active club members,” she said.
Even though the dance club is unable to continue with regular rehearsals and performances, club members have been using WebEx and Zoom platforms to keep the community alive.
Currently, club activities range from discussing creative concepts for choreography, sharing links of past works and virtual festivals, going over healthy eating patterns, sharing recipes, and WebEx/Zoom cooking events. “The club can also enjoy a shared reading list to enhance their knowledge of cance as an art form,” said Needle.
Professor Janette Dishuk has also been actively involved with the club. She has worked as an advisor for many years, overseeing open rehearsals, helping to critique work, support costume design, and overseeing music editing and advertising on campus platforms. “She has donated endless hours of expertise to the Dance Club,” said Needle about her colleague.
The future activity of the club during the pandemic seems to be promising, as they will be setting weekly meetings to explore creative collaboration and practices and to plan for the post-pandemic performances. “Our ideal plan would be to return to the prior goal of presenting an annual concert in Ender Hall and witness new works created by BCC students during the pandemic,” she said.
Since it’s challenging to keep the existing protocols in place at the time of the pandemic, the main goal of the club, for the time being, is “to keep the dance population connected and have their voices heard.”
For everyone who is interested to join the BCC Dance Club, please email Lynn Needle at lneedle@bergen.edu to express your interest and time of availability. The meetings take place weekly on Thursday afternoons from 1 to 2 p.m.
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