CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - In a nearly empty studio, her voice echoing off the high ceiling as she called out movements like plie, demi and fondu, Charleston Ballet director Kim Pauley danced alone - except for a few dozen eyes watching her through the internet.
A few feet away, beside the stereo playing out a piano version of Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters,” a score of young dancers watched their instructor through phones, tablets and laptops and tried to follow along.
Pauley, looking toward the screen of her MacBook, can see them all. The young, slender dancers are bent in various directions, no two alike.
The students can all follow the instructor, but they can’t follow each other because of different internet speeds and delays in the network.
Every now and then, one of the little cells on the screen goes dark as a connection is lost for a moment or times out.
“It’s not ideal,” Pauley said, frustrated. “But it’s something.”
Just over six weeks ago, Charleston Ballet was just about to open its production of “Giselle.” Posters had been up around town for weeks. The young dancers had been diligently working on the steps for the romantic ballet for months.
The Charleston Coliseum’s Little Theater had been booked and the ballet company’s regular collaborators, Columbia Classical Ballet, were scheduled to come north from Columbia, South Carolina, to help carry off the two performances.
Mary Anna Ball, one of the company’s dancers said, “That was something I’d really been looking forward to.”
The 22-year-old Charleston native has been part of Charleston Ballet since she was in the “Creative Movement” class as a 4-year-old.
She said it was a ballet she’d always wanted to perform, but in the weeks leading up to the show, talk of the coronavirus was leading to government directives for public safety. Tours were being canceled, and then the West Virginia Symphony Orchestra canceled a concert, but Ball said she’d hoped that they might squeak past.
“We’d sort of suspected that it might not happen,” she said. “Miss Pauley told us right before that last rehearsal that it might not and we did the rehearsal in costume.”
The next morning, Pauley called Ball at work and told her there was no show and classes would be suspended until further notice.
“I kind of cried right there in the office,” Ball said.
Fifteen-year-old Leo Okuno agreed.
“It’s like any other sport,” the Charleston Catholic student said. “You’re building up for something you think is going to be amazing. You can’t wait to do it on the stage, and then it all comes to a screeching halt.”
“I felt just as devastated as the dancers,” Pauley said.
Not long after, all theaters and clubs across the state - and most of the country - closed down.
No concerts. No recitals. No theater. Public performance of the arts ground to a halt with no indication of when they might begin again.
“I think I was kind of numb,” Pauley said. “You just kind of got stuck in your tracks there. You just didn’t realize the scope of it.”
Pauley and her dancers waited to see what would happen, but dancers have a hard time sitting still. The work requires regular rehearsal and practice. Without it, specialized muscles can weaken, joints can lose some of their flexibility and memory just fades.
Dance is an art that requires a high degree of discipline.
In early April, Pauley resumed classes and instruction.
“I started with the Wednesday class for company members and apprentices,” she said. “These were my clients. They’d paid for classes they just weren’t getting.”
For members of the company and the apprentices - the higher-level dance students - she used the online meeting service Zoom.
Ball said, “I was really excited that I could still be dancing with Miss Pauley. I’d been taking some classes on Instagram, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t have my friends and I didn’t get correction. It just didn’t feel right.”
The class went well enough that Pauley added two more.
She also recorded a demonstration video for her elementary school-age dancers that they could watch over and over whenever they wanted to prepare for an eventual recital.
“I gave them the choreography, the music and the barre,” she said. “Doing a Zoom meeting with the little ones just didn’t make sense. It’s so much more hands-on with them.”
It’s not ideal, but Pauley said the dance company is shuffling along as best they know how. The Wednesday class begins at 4 p.m., but Pauley said she opens up the meeting before 3:30 to give everyone time to log in.
The dancers chat with Pauley and check in with each other. Someone is always a little late, but Pauley laughed and said, “That’s OK. I always go late.”
Her dancers get a full class. Pauley keeps the meeting open an extra half hour to cover the extra time and to give the company a chance to be together as a community.
When they begin, the students mute the microphones on their devices to just listen to her, unless they have a quick question.
Pauley smiled and said, “They’re so polite.”
Then they start.
Together, the young women and men dance, moving to the same beat, the same music, but not exactly at the same time. They dance in their homes, in cleared out dining rooms, in living rooms with the furniture pushed back or in their kitchens.
A couple of dancers have their own practice studios.
Ball said, “I’m lucky to have a little bit of a studio with a sprung floor and a barre.”
But it’s small, really too small to practice the big jumps Ball likes.
“You really need a huge studio like the one Charleston Ballet has for that kind of thing,” she said. “You can’t do the jumps in a 7-by-8(-foot) room.”
And the ballet studio on Capitol Street doesn’t have cats or dogs wandering around - or brothers in the next room making noise as they paint.
There are other problems with practicing at home, too.
Okuno said the floor in his home was more slippery than a dance studio’s Marley floor, which he thought was manageable. But he missed having a barre. At home, he holds onto the back of a chair.
“It’s not ideal, but you do what you can,” he said.
There’s a lot to overcome to get through a class, but the dancers do it anyway. Earnest and intent, dressed in leotards and athleticwear, ready to work, they dance with a lot of heart.
“They’re really good kids,” Pauley said. “They try so hard. That’s why I sit there and try to make sure they all get on.”
Pauley watches her students as she leads the class. She scours the little boxes on the screen looking for problems to correct. She speaks up when she sees something, like if someone’s posture is off.
“Stay stacked,” she called to them through the MacBook’s microphone. “You know who you are.”
It’s difficult and distracting work, and when the music stops the room gets terribly quiet.
“The only sound there is of my furnace kicking on,” she said.
Pauley keeps it warm. When the studio is full of students running, jumping and dancing, she scarcely needs to add heat, even in the winter.
When she’s not teaching, Pauley spends most days in the ballet company’s office, filling out forms, applying for grants and hoping for an SBA loan.
“No luck yet,” she said.
It’s slow going and frustrating. The waiting just goes on and on.
Pauley said she doesn’t know how long she’s going to have to keep teaching online, but she isn’t in any rush to open the studio’s doors, even though she knew her dancers wanted to come back as soon as possible.
“There was a time when I think some of them took all of this for granted,” Pauley said. “I don’t think any of them will.”
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