A Pandemic; In The Meantime

A Pandemic: In The Meantime

By: Carly DuBreuil 

The Contemporary Dance Majors at Simon Fraser University faced a new challenge as their annual Student Choreography Show shifted to a virtual formal this year. On February 13th and 14th, 2021, the department presented In The Meantime-- a production intended to showcase emerging works that were created amidst the pandemic. The show, which consisted of sixteen individual pieces split across the two nights, were created by different artists including a mix of solos, duos, trios and small groups. The title In The Meantime hinted that the production was meant to comment on pandemic, and demonstrate what the artists were working on to pass the time in isolation. However, the individual pieces were unsuccessful in demonstrating how the artists feel about being isolated, because they either simply tried to evoke the feeling of confinement rather than commenting on it, or did not reference COVID-19 at all. 

The show opened with the organizers providing a land acknowledgement, recognizing that the work was created on stolen land. In comparison to previous years, the show presented more solo and duo pieces, most likely due to the COVID-19 restrictions. I suspect the production would have presented more large groups if the artists were not confirmed by pandemic guidelines. As the artists creating for this show are all emerging university students, it is very possible this would have been the first time many of them translated their work to film. This likely created new challenges for the artists; not only did they have to establish an interesting concept, but it had to translate to an audience through the screen. This may be why there was some difficulty in portraying how the artists feel about the pandemic, and why most opted to solely replicate feelings of isolation instead. 

The first piece entitled “Rapid.Eye.Movement” was choreographed by Camryn Frisk, with music composed by Sebastian Ortiz-Cruz. The soundtrack was mechanical with glitching and fuzzy white noise incorporated throughout the duration of the work. The film was in black and white with a low-resolution grainy element to it, which was especially prevalent through a few distinct repeated visual shots. In the opening, we see a person lying on a bed rolling from side to side, shot from a bird's eye view. The majority of the film was edited to be in fast motion with a notable use of repetition and the layering of footage. This piece had a very eerie and mysterious feeling to it, causing the audience to question what is going on. Though the work was successful in the sense that its black and white imagery created the feeling of isolation, I did not feel there was a clear enough arc to dig into how the artist feels about being isolated. Frisk seemed to have a good grasp on the complexities of dance on screen, utilizing a lot of editing features like fast motion, layering, and multiple filming angles to keep the audience engaged. But, while In The Meantime as a whole was successful in demonstrating themes of the pandemic, “Rapid.Eye.Movement” lacked the storyline or narrative needed for its audience to clearly decipher how the artist responded to their new isolation. 

The fourth piece in the show was entitled “The Sun, The Star and The Moon” by Mikela Vuorensivu, Roya Pishvaei, Andrea Isea Galindo, with composer Sam Meadahl. This piece was primarily wide view scenic landscape shots. The three dancers were wearing loose flowy clothing, which was deliberately and consciously used to flourish their movement. The music had an acoustic guitar base with a repetitive strum pattern, but it eventually changed to a new strum pattern about halfway through the piece. The film was edited in a specific format that repeated to showcase each dancer, as well as multiple visual angles. Given there were three dancers in the film I would assume one represented the sun, one the star, and one the moon, possibly commenting on each individual's important place in this universe. This film was very visually appealing, pleasant and consistent throughout, I would assume they used an editing preset so all the shots had the same colouring and tone. The artists used a lot of layering video of multiple dancers on top of one another in the film. The transitions between shots were also very smooth and clearly intentional. I believe the artists had a clear vision of what the final product would look like and planned for it to be a dance on film from the start. But, it, too, dragged on without any rise in energy. As beautiful as the scenic background was, it unfortunately did not do enough to maintain audience engagement, thus leaving the work feeling flat and lacking dynamic. Like the previous piece, it also failed to comment on the pandemic isolation, which appeared to be the intention of the show. 

“If I concentrate, the self loathing almost feels like love” by Natalia Martineau with music credits not stated, was the third piece in the show. The piece opened with a headshot of a woman staring into the camera, slowly rubbing her hand across her chest. The music was constructed of a variety of popping sounds and a secondary sound with a quicker pace introduced partway through the piece. The visual switched to a full body shot of the woman executing choreography, utilizing the two doorways in the shot as a choreographic component. The piece concluded with a similar close up shot to the opening. The dancer’s intense glare into the camera in the opening shot, along with the ambiguous title, caught interest from the start. Based on the choreographer's notes in the program and the movement in the film, it would seem she is attempting to demonstrate personal habits used to create an ideal version of herself. I felt that the piece kept my focus throughout its duration, and had a clear structure to guide the work to completion. However, there were not many, if any, video editing features used in this film. One shot went straight to another without any edited transition; this could definitely be a choice, but I am curious as to whether this was due to lack of experience with video editing or how she envisioned the film from the start. As before, the piece did not seem to make an effort to comment on isolation, which appeared to be the main intention of the show. 

Considering the circumstances with COVID-19 restrictions, the artists produced lovely work. There would have been little to no access to proper rehearsal spaces and no face to face feedback sessions with peers or other artists. Additionally, it is unlikely many artists had proper videography equipment or a videographer available to them and they may have been a learning curve when it came to editing software. Yet, the pieces did not seem to connect to the themes insinuated by the title In The Meantime. It did, however, offer these emerging artists a platform to display work in a new technology.