Dance is connection. And disconnection. It's letting go and it's coming together. It's one of the things we miss most. And no, dancing on Zoom is not the same.
Amrita Hepi has a real world solution. In these days that we need dance more than ever, the award-winning First Nations choreographer and dancer has launched Soothsayer Serenades. According to Hepi, Soothsayer Serenades is a provocation for moving together while apart, "without proof or presence."
The initiative is based on connection beyond the visual and digital realms.
As Hepi notes, there'll be no Zoom meet up, no Instagram Live - but a shared experience nonetheless.
Soothsayer Serenades goes something like this: every Wednesday at 4pm for the next five weeks, Hepi will release a playlist and a "provocation" to move.
"As much as I admire people who are doing online dance classes and I think that's beautiful and amazing and we're all working as much as we can, I wanted to resist the immediate market-driven demand to turn everything into a flat, online experience," Hepi explains of the impetus behind Soothsayer Serenades.
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"I understand that Soothsayer Serenades is being shared with other people via the internet. But I was like, how can we commit to being together in some kind of psychic realm, some kind of physical way, that doesn't make us tethered to what we're already tethered to - and to the kind of frenetic energy to document and show evidence for every single thing?"
"I liked the idea of a Soothsayer, or somebody who could predict the future ... If we can try and perform the present while keeping our eyes towards the future."
"And the future has to be offline as much as it is online."
The first Soothsayer Serenades, supported by Cement Fondu, launches at 4pm today. And the first playlist featuring Rema, Caroline Polacheck and Kedr Livanskiy, is live now.
Tune in below and be there (energetically). And, of course, don't forget to move.
