Trapped in a box
With a thorough Covid risk assessment in place, marked out boxes on the studio floor and hand sanitiser at every turn we felt safely equipped to hold an internal work CPD day with our fantastic freelance dance team!
Our focus being mindful movement, how we can embed this into our practice and to what effect it might have on our participants. Especially now as we try and support our community in a very surreal limbo land where things are partially re-opening and wondering if we’re ready to re-join the world as we did before?
For us? We’ve been waiting on government guidelines specifically for community dance to decide how we start up again and last week our prayers were answered when they were finally published, here. Wales is currently experiencing a series of local lockdowns and speaking to a few of our participants we agree that getting back to the studio to dance together is needed but only when it is safe to do so.
So we’re trying to be creative, we’re working with our partners is social care and sport development to reach participants digitally in care homes and schools across county. We’re able to offer, in partnership with Ransack Dance, a Zoom project for youth dancers and we’re trialing live Zoom classes for our Senior Moment(um) crew to try and connect them from all parts of Powys!
So our CPD day allowed us to see what dancing in socially distanced boxes was like, how can we make our sessions more mindful and what does mindfulness even look like in a dance class?
We decided to change our language, look at our boxes as a ‘playbox’ a space that’s your own, where you won’t crash into anyone but you’re still connected to the room, rather than be ‘trapped in a box’, (cue No Doubt playing over and over in my head), but more enjoy your space, play, explore it and have fun!
We explored different practical ways of moving mindfully, breath work, play, tai chi and partner work - yes partner work, socially distanced and in our own box but successful and super fun partner work!
We talked a lot about the term being ‘mindful’ and how it really differs for each person. Mindfulness doesn’t have to be one thing to everyone, mindfulness can be immersing yourself completely to the task of learning set moves, that alone distracts you for a whole session, enough time to forget what it was you were worrying about before class started. It’s also in finding a real wholehearted connection to you and your body, really tuning in with breath, movement, control and how certain moves feel. It can be learning the funkiest routine, or exploring your own creative movement, but it is about being present, something that we do well in dance!
We were able to make positive links between how we structure a dance class and the ‘5 ways to well-being’, dance really does tick the box for all 5 and it’s given us a lot to think about in terms of how we apply this to our sessions, especially sessions for our young people. Supporting them physically and mentally throughout this uncertain time, equipping them with the resilience to take on daily challenges as well as new choreography!
