Abstract:

The social distancing necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic has brought about many changes in education where teachers and learners have had to move, willingly or unwillingly, from presence to distance. While schools and universities are mentioned, the field of leisure is often overlooked, but this field also includes many other forms of more or less formal educational activities, especially in the arts, culture and sports. However, these activities have also had to deal with containment measures. The case of dance as a leisure activity involving amateurs and professionals seems particularly interesting to us, in that a number of dance teachers earn a living from this teaching as self-employed workers, while for their students it is an amateur activity intended to give them pleasure through participation in parties or shows―these, like dance classes, are prohibited social encounters when containment measures are in place and challenging when it comes to maintaining social distancing. To what extent have the practices of professional and amateur dancers adapted to this new reality?

We conducted a survey among professionals and amateurs practicing a variety of dance styles, and asked them about their relationship with dance and their practices during lockdown. This survey was disseminated mainly in France and Canada, via the social network Facebook, which is very popular with dancers at all times. The survey is still open at the time of writing this proposal and the responses received so far show that 85% of respondents feel they belong to a community of dancers and that half of them normally take classes several times a week and attend a convention at least once a year. Whether they teach or not, the dancers surveyed present distance education as a way out, because they cannot be in the presence of others, and point to several difficulties related to distance dance training. The primary challenges identified are the lack of interaction and possibilities for making corrections to movements, and additional problems mentioned include the lack of a partner for couple dances, trouble with positioning for group choreographic dances, the discrepancy between sound and image in videoconferencing, and even the difficulty of finding a space conducive to performing movements at home. Although two thirds of the amateur dancers do not think that they will continue taking online classes once in-person classes can resume, they nevertheless appreciate the possibility of continuing their learning with their teachers and, in particular, with other instructors who are geographically distant and with whom they would not have been able to take regular classes.

To conclude, we will discuss the diversity of distance training that continues to be developed in the field of dance, both at a distance through online courses, and in person with dance practices that respect social distancing, with the follower being guided by the leader without a physical connection between them. This is comparable to a Wi-Fi connection working without hardware.

Keywords:

Distance education, social distancing, dance.