 and welcome to Discovery Night Foundation's weekly series that looks at the creation of informed and engaged communities through the lens of artists and the arts. I'm Victoria Rogers, Vice President of Arts. Today we'll be discussing the dance community, how it's coping, reimagining itself, and embracing change. Joining me in a minute will be Christy Bolingbrook, Executive and Artistic Director of the National Choreography Center in Akron and Lourdes Lopez, Artistic Director of the Miami City Ballet for a conversation about moving from reaction to action through COVID and beyond. For our viewers please submit your questions throughout the show via Zoom using the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen through Twitter using the hashtag Night Live and in the comment section of the Facebook livestream. Christy and Lourdes welcome to Discovery. Hi Victoria. Hi. It's good to see your faces. You're welcome. So you two are paired because while you're both deeply ingrained in the arts you bring really different experiences and a different point of view to the table. So for our audience and our prep meeting the three of us covered a lot of ground. We looked at relevant survival, reimagining dance, what do you keep, what do you do? Jettison, wellness, service, resiliency, performance, limitations, and opportunities. So three hours later we're going to cut this down to 30 minutes. But Lourdes let's start with something that you had said that I was really interested in. You talked about dance isn't fragile and then you went to the more specific the model, the more vulnerable it is and being a Balanchine company and a former Balanchine prima ballerina I think you have some experience with that. So if you don't mind kick us off and let's start down this track of what is how are we going to reimagine dance. Thank you Victor I'd love to and listen thank you for this opportunity to also to discuss these things because I think that we're when we're you know we're so in a zoom in our own world and the ability to speak to you and to Christy and to others in the field and even outside our field is incredibly important because this is the time truly where everything is on the table I mean everything is on the table it's a paradigm shift it's it's really a complete change but my really my statement was that dance is not fragile the arts are not fragile they've been around you know since the beginning of time as long as human beings will be on this earth they'll exist because art is created by human beings and so I feel and I always have felt that the more you protect something the more vulnerable you become right the whole point of an art form is that it has to evolve the way human it's an expression of life so as life and human beings evolve so does the art form any art form and so and so should artists so you do have to give them that that freedom and you know I yes I am a product of the the balancing aesthetic and the balancing style and and view but you have to remember he was really one of the greatest creative geniuses of the 20th century he changed his art form and so it was never a precious thing that you held on on to in fact if you believe it's powerful as as we do and Christy I know you that you share this with me but if you believe the art form is powerful if you believe it's transformative if you believe it's it should be part of your everyday life which all of us on this panel believe that then you have to somehow let it go and allow it to do just that in every single environment because I really believe that what we do continues to matter and what the interesting thing about now and the extraordinary I think wonderful challenge is to find different ways of doing it so I don't know if this is your question I think it does go ahead Christy go ahead yeah we knew that that would be a part of it and this improvisation it is exactly that invitation when you talk when you are talking lordess about not holding on so tightly because I find that that also if we think about what it is to move you lose the opportunities you're too rigid to be able to move through something else and and I think in this moment our standard assumptions about time and place and space are all up for grabs and so if those are no longer restrictions for us as dance makers then what what do you discover what are the new opportunities so talk somewhere about that Christy well I mean with the opportunities and that which is what I really appreciated when lordess had introduced for us that you know if you're too specific in what you do then you can't find any other room and by too specific we might offer like we know that there are a lot of players in our ecology might do 40 or 50 weeks of programming that meant when covid first hit they were in a constant state of trauma and cancellation and just reacting over and over again they were too tightly you know holding on and having to adapt to managing where they were already so tightly made even pre-covid they had no space or room for experimentation so this opportunity now to consider it has been something you know for us at NCC Akron we normally bring artists in through Akron we get to host them we get to share the the rich environment of Akron I like to say there's a lot of space you know mental space emotional space physical space and we were like that immediately got taken away from us so it came a question of well we're not here just to make new dances we're here to support artists we don't just do residencies we're about supporting the people involved how could we still take care how could we still inspire room to play and so we're we took a while to experiment with it but that's one of the reasons we're offering residency in a box now we've never sold anything because we don't sell tickets so that was a an opportunity to experiment and fail but we were really thinking how could we share parts of Akron uh elsewhere how could we also inspire other people to operate from a place of abundance where they could say hey you know I want to give this to you a care package I hadn't gotten those since college and I think all of us right now the mail means so much importantly to us to get something actually from a person uh and then we saw more opportunities with that idea of abundance to expand and realize like oh it's not about us making money in this moment but how do we continue to pay it forward and sharing the proceeds of these residencies in a box with other organizations that are doing equity work in dance so we're trying to still move as a network like we are but it's not something that would have been on our radar before covid because we were so focused on the things that we're doing the people that come to Akron so that's really where it's been an opportunity to transcend time and place and space thanks for that so lores you've been doing a lot of experimentation as well with how dance is presented and you've you're sort of going down that digital way in some cases why don't you talk a little bit about that and what you're what you're seeing in the future yeah I mean absolutely look and I will I will admit it I was one of those individuals that were you know early late 19th century early 20th century I had to be in the studio and I I had to have the human being and I had to be in the theater I mean I you know it was it was the world that I grew up in and then all of a sudden covid hit and it pushed us all off that cliff I mean we're all off the cliff already so and I as a really as a I'm incredibly proud of Miami City Valley because we we moved with lightning speed I mean with lightning lightning speed and and and it really is the philosophy of this is a powerful art form and it can do anything you want it to do so I approached the school and I just said I know I get it it's on zoom I get it's a computer I understand all of that but can we just not try to figure out how to continue just what Christy's talking about continue giving these classes to students because it was really the school that was at that point the most vulnerable and we did one week of pilot classes and to my surprise to my surprise I'll be the first to admit it it worked I mean it wasn't it was just different right so that's what I've learned it's not either or it's not one or the other it's it's the ability to do this hybrid thoughtful I did not experiment really organization or offering and so we we we had a week of pilot classes to these pre-professional students that within two weeks turned into 108 classes and I realized that there were aspects of how we were doing business now that would really be interesting to keep as we move forward for both company and school right into the digital world and digital space what what did it allow us to do that we couldn't do because we were restricted by a proscenium theater we were restricted by the four walls we were just restricted by bricks and mortar and so that opened up a whole it was really truly like a aha moment like the and I approached Deronte Versola a young kind of you know with it a choreographer that was a product of this Miami City Valley school and I knew it had to be someone who wasn't how should I say closed off or it wasn't so ensconced in the old world of ours and I said listen can you create a ballet a work remotely everyone is in a different place you can't come together you figure it out and and he did they did it was just extraordinary and it just shows to me that art will really find a way I think what we've seen if I may just give me a few more minutes I think what we've seen is that people can create digitally and people can create remotely there are two issues as I see that I I would love to speak about one is I think that's the age old question in other words what's the message you deliver your delivery because it's not about filming a dancer somewhere or filming an actor somewhere it's it's really about is it art are you still deliver and I don't mean bad I said are you still delivering a message are you still is it still relevant are you creating an emotion from your audience and then the other thing is monetizing it and I Victoria it is I tell you we were I just feel that in terms of dance we they're eating our lunch right meaning we were we were so we were like live we're live or in the moment you'll never see it again it's you know human and all of a sudden the sports are doing it every other every other art form had to figure out how to do digital and we were somehow caught unawares and so that's for me how do we because we have to survive that's our business model we have to be able to make revenue I mean I hate to be so crap crap about it I know I'll have to respond well you lay a lot down there Lordess but one of the things that came up when you talked about the classes I would want to highlight some work that dance church hate Wallach and the YC have been doing out of Seattle now before COVID their form of classes already were a little less precious and a little less traditional they often had a live D-Day they often had the dancer wearing a Madonna mic or a Brittany mic depending on your generation uh leading class that already made them more nimble to pivot and do it online then we discover new things about capacity online they average 900 to a thousand people who tune in two to three times a week to take what's advertised as a dance party that you wish you had been at the night before and that's so fascinating to me I don't want to be in a studio with 900 people taking a dance class right that that would be us from a more traditional standpoint and so that's exciting about how it could find and tap new areas and how it was specific to Kate's particular artistic point of view I'm not saying that it's a realistic goal for all other art forms but thinking like literally outside the box of our studio to to consider what else could we do the idea of um are we making the art and and the different opportunity that that's actually a concern that I have for the field because some companies are starting to work again and they're like great we just put on a mask and we're just going to have you do the same dance that we made 10 years ago in a park okay that's what I call dance flop not site specific dance so the opportunity with film is a creative one to say like yeah you couldn't normally bring in redwood trees into the concert venue um how else do you want to respond into your environment and make that a part of your art as opposed to making it something you know that you're just like this is an alternative compromise that's still the the emotional reaction we still need to dance as opposed to the pro activity of where else can I go with this art form so christie with the different choreographers that you work with what is what is that message that they're trying to convey now what are you seeing you know out in the field yeah I mean it I think what's immediately felt is questioning so why do I even do this do I want to continue to do this moving forward it can be paralyzing for some who realized how precarious their entire existence and way of making was to begin with 80 percent of the dance field is as you've heard me say often is working on a project basis in some ways that actually lent them more room to pivot they didn't have to worry about maintaining you know of a earned revenue stream and how when that bottom dropped out as far as seven weeks of performances are thickening but that also meant that they feel the squeeze more immediately because not only did their audiences or their gigs show up but maybe other things like they're used to be working in restaurants and and you know having Pilates clients so there's like I think a lot of an existentialism right now and then we have the added pandemics and of the racial justice movement adding on to that and the politics of the damn thing body so it's a really rich opportunity a lot of the artists either are pivoting and adapting work that they already had in them in the works things that they have been making for the last two or three years and now they're going well how can I share this now we work with chamele basoko who adapted his chameleon project into a series of installation that the New York Times covered in April and they're having another round later this weekend but we also are working with artists who maybe thought they were going to start to go into the studio this fall and now they're going I'm really questioning like how do I decolonize my body in this moment how do I be responsive to the racial justice movement how do I to be a part of the solution moving forward and so maybe it's not about me producing something in the next three months six months or even year and guess what that could be a good thing because they might not have anywhere to perform it if need be so is anything it's elongated the deep gestation period but yeah existential crisis I think is the the summarizing message right now so we got a question do you think these innovative performances whether it's virtual or what else will shape the performing arts after the pandemic you know I know we've had that conversation if you if we go to some hybrid form what does that look like when you can return to a performing venue and people will actually come back to see it I would I would I actually bring back Loris's comment it's not either or yeah anything it's more democratizing because I have often said like in dance films you could spend 30 or 40 thousand dollars making a five minute dance film and it could then tour the 20 city and the reality in dance if you're only holding on to the live performance you could also spend 30 or 40 thousand dollars and perform it for three nights in your hometown in front of 400 people and that's the end of the piece it never gets seen again so my hope is that it's not about oh now I have to do live performance and I have to do virtual performances but this is the opportunity to experiment and then when we can convene again some artists may choose never to go back into the theater they found another outlet another way to deliver their message and that that's what excites me about how the performing arts field is that live performance isn't always a assumed end and you know like that's the only way we do it but that we were finding other ways you know I think that relates lord us to a comment that you'd made before relating to how you found another aha moment that digital also enabled you to highlight what your dancers do you know the personality of them the uniqueness of the Miami City Ballet you want to talk a little bit about that as you're looking at what you're doing going forward sure and I think I think Victoria it actually relates beautifully to what Christie was just talking about because I do think that you have to at least I feel that I've got to look at at the mission of Miami City Ballet and the the reason for being of Miami City Ballet and and think of a different of a broader model to it because we are not going to go back to what we were before if we do it'll be it'll be some time but it's not going to I don't believe it's going to be in the near future and I have to tell you honestly I'm not I don't know that I want to go back to that right there's something there's a lot of really exciting stuff that is happening now that I think is can be part of a hybrid model which I think is much more democratic right the ability to kind of go out there a little bit more so I am questioning as as the artistic director I am questioning you know the theaters that we dance in the performances that we do do we need that production does it have to be in that those those walls so it opens up a whole brand new kind of world as it does I I'm kind of excited to see what these choreographers and what these artists are going to start to create right post COVID but I think in respect to digital is you know I I don't think well there are very few people that watch more ballet and I talk about specifically ballet here than I do and at the very beginning it was you know I was watching everything and I came away thinking you know in in real life every single company around the United States looks different and that's what's so exciting about it right you go to you'll go to Chicago you go to Boston or Seattle or San Francisco New York Miami everyone has their DNA they have the DNA of their city in them and it's wonderful to see and somehow on digital it started looking the same I mean even European companies started and I realized that it has to do with it's a it's a different medium right so one thing is filming a work that is being performed for proscenium stage with a theater with a production it's it's from one perspective the audience's perspective and that's it and then that doesn't always distinguish individuality right that you see in a live performance once you get to digital you really have to I think it just opens up your world because you can then be the eye for the audience you can just say this is this is what I believe the choreographer who want you to see this is a really important part of it you can zoom in you can zoom out there's a whole narrative that takes place that's not just what you see on the stage but it has to come from a very different I think perspective and I'm not I'm not a director or producer but I think from a very different part of your creative mind to to deliver it through film and through digital and because it's it's just a different language it's a different language and that's when I think it's going to get exciting because right now what I'm seeing in including with Miami City Ballet except for the except for these digital commissions is really an archival work that was performed at a certain day in a theater from this perspective and so it becomes flat where art is not flat now it certainly is not so we have a question here from Hadassah once we are able to move around more freely do you think that audiences are going to continue to be so interested in virtual performances or will they prefer to return to the theater will you need to pivot again at least in part I will jump on that one a little bit Hadassah as a recovering marketer from earlier in my career I love the audience and opportunity and I think one of the things pre-covid we were already dealing with a drop-off or limited audiences and I often assign that to a generation that didn't have any sort of arts education in school and so we needed to be able to expand and so if there's anything in this moment and and really capitalizing on the digital opportunities is think about how many new people were reading they might may not know the difference Lordus between regional companies and the individuality but they may be actually paying attention or watching a video of Swan Lake for the first time and if anything that's the opportunity that we have now is what is the we talked a little bit in our prep session about like what is the new cycle of engaging these audiences how do we continue to expand with people and also recognize that if there are people who are engaging with us online they may never go into the concert hall because they weren't going to go into the concert hall anyways how is this removed some of the barriers about that so I do think that there will be audiences that want to return but they likely were the same people who were coming to our shows beforehand and one of the questions that we may have to consider here in the field is how are we bringing along people who've only ever engaged with us personally and are we going to continue to only meet them where they're comfortable or are we going to try and build it and on ramp into the theaters again what might that on ramp look like Lordus you look like you had a thought going there no I just kind of wanted to jump in because I just thought what Chrissy said was was so interesting if I may so we had at Miami City Valley a very different experience so we had we didn't finish our program four so we just got you know three quarters of the way through and we had already exceeded our ticket sales historically so we've never had we this was a highest selling season so we were just truly truly building um what I'd say this this um this base this this really fan base it's really was a fan base um when everything kind of dropped dead and it was I have to tell you it was it was a moment of kind of panic right because I thought but I believe that once we are done with this virus and it's that there's a vaccine and because this is not going to be the rest of our lives it'll be a part of it but it's not going to go on for the rest of our lives that there'll be that there's just a wonderful opportunity and that's why I said that we were somehow the dance world I think was left um in the dark ages um there's this wonderful opportunity to do a hybrid very similar to sports so the sports analogy they figured it out they you know you're you're there in that in watching those tennis players you're in that that stadium you're everyone's next to you you're just so excited and you have an individual who's at home you know sitting in front of the television they're just as excited it's how you deliver what you're seeing right and so I do think that there's um there's just this wonderful opportunity um not only to to reach a broader audience and a larger audience that we wouldn't I mean there are dancers now that are taking class with teachers in Europe you just have to wake up at the time right it's it's extraordinary to me so what was what was limited before all those barriers are out you have other barriers but those barriers are out so I think there's just great opportunity for truly truly a very different model a very different model not going back to what we did before but incorporating aspects um and they'll be you know it's it's we the dance world has not seen a change like this and I don't know how long it's been years we're the oldest art form out there we've held on at least ballet we've held on to this and it's kind of free christy you want to have one final comment before we cut this off well sure I just want to also offer I early on I had to remind myself it it took 70 80 years to build the ecology market the way the dance is operating and it's going to take a while for it to adjust but this is the most dramatic I record this the most dramatic shift and invitation for us to make some of those adaptations that it might have taken us much longer to scale or adapt and so I you know I I think that we're up for the challenge if there's anything dance knows it's how to pivot and we're ready for it and a ball change and a move through space and that's why I so appreciated the opportunity for us to talk about this is not a moment that even though it we're not moving together that we're necessarily standing still not a moment to waste for sure and at some point how we need to have another I would really like to have the time to talk about the decolonization I think that it's such an important issue today and the and the bodies that are being presented who who has agency in this so that's enough that's for another go round but unfortunately our time is up we try to keep these to 30 minutes really want to thank all of you for joining us special thanks to Chrissy Bollingbrook and Lordus Lopez and to the night production crew the beats at the top of the show were created by Chris Barr the director of art and technology here at night and the music that will play us out is composed and performed by jazz pianist Theron Brown also from Akron next week for discovery I'll be joined by Dina Hagag president and ceo of us artists I hope you'll join us 1 p.m. Easter have a great weekend guys thanks so much to the two of you bye