When theaters closed their doors for COVID-19 in March, it looked like curtains for performing artists. With distancing guidelines in place for a virus with no cure in sight, an industry based on contact and physical presence was forced to retreat behind a screen—to video, video calls, and livestreams—where dimension and shared space is reduced at best to the illusion of shared time. In the absence of spaces verified by the lives of others, never has time seemed so fictional (“What is time?” we all ask). And yet dancing has never ceased.
MAY
They began to envision an array of cars at night tasked with lighting cues to create a theatrical experience. Composer and collaborator Bob Garrett, who assisted at the event, intervened. “He said, ‘Guys, 16 cars is too much. Don’t worry about the formation,’” remembers Vora. They queried an artist friend about the parking lot at the Zhou B Art Center. “He said, ‘When?’ I said, ‘This weekend?’ We talked on Wednesday night, and we performed Sunday.”
“We want to do many outdoor series, not just one,” says Vora. “We are thinking about organizing and cocurating with other artists. This platform can be shared with different people in different neighborhoods working in different media—dance, music, painting, sculpture.”
In contrast to many companies that shifted work online, Hanson says, “I felt no attraction to figuring out how to do things online or virtually.” Instead, she focused on a different project, GRASS, currently scheduled to premiere in March 2021, and turned to analog modes of connecting: storytelling and house calls: “I wanted to invite people to talk about their relationships to turf grass and cannabis. And maybe folks will want to have a small dance ensemble perform outside their house or apartment building.”
JULY
