Remote proximity: Making immersive dance under COVID-19 lockdown

Abstract

This article chronicles the various pivots one dance ensemble, Lenora Lee Dance, made in trying to bring our dance project to fruition under the COVID-19 pandemic and after both the murder of George Floyd and the spike in anti-Asian hate in the United States between 2020 and 2021. And the Community Will Rise was intended to be an immersive, site-specific dance set throughout the courtyards, hallways and apartment interiors of the Ping Yuen public housing complex in San Francisco’s Chinatown in autumn 2020. The piece aimed to explore the lives of the residents and the history of their struggle for affordable housing and tenants’ rights, amidst a contemporary background of rising housing insecurity among communities of colour in San Francisco. We were three rehearsals into the project when COVID-19 hit the Bay Area in March 2020. This article documents our attempts to adapt And the Community Will Rise from an immersive dance to an immersive screendance. I reflect upon the various options we moved through as the pandemic wore on, as well as the questions social distancing raised for us regarding the value of home, of sociality and also the value of remote dance performance. This article offers one case study, from an insider perspective, to understand wider artistic innovations this pandemic moment has initiated. Together they board a boat that crosses the San Francisco Bay and pulls into Angel Island. They disembark and trek the mile to the Immigration Station. An immigration officer meets them and divides them into two groups. Names are called and individuals step forward, the rest are marched into the building in two streams. One stream goes to the women’s dormitory where earlier detainees are already settled; a man in a white medical coat enters and calls more names; these women are ushered to the medical examination room, the showers and the interrogation office. The new arrivees follow behind.