ODE TO THE ISOLATION GRADUATES
28-09-20
Whilst it would be great and refreshingly original to avoid a certain topic, it has become far too inevitable, therefore I will address it loudly and in the first sentence of my post: COVID-19 has earth shatteringly changed the timeline of the LCDS graduate. At any other point in time, this would have sounded hyperbolic. However right now it is rather a shameful understatement. COVID-19 has punched the entire dance/performance/art(insert anything and everything) world right in the gut and left it coughing up once passionate and productive practitioners into pits of unemployment and confusion, wondering why the shiny face of our supposedly beloved cultural scene is now looking back at us apologetically as if to say “I’m really sorry, but this just isn’t going to work. It’s not you, it's the horrendous mismanagement of a global pandemic at the hands of a bumbling so and so!”. Now that sounds more accurate.
Despite my seemingly gloomy sentiments, I have intentions to write with a level of optimism. Miraculously amidst the turmoil, 51 beautiful people have emerged into the world as graduates from a conservatoire that prides itself upon enriching young artists with the skills to become critically innovative individuals. London Contemporary Dance School has a track record of being the dance school for the creative souls; the ones that use every scrap of information they receive, from cooking to filming to sleeping to sewing, to inform their development as dance artists. A school for those that don’t see dance as a single pathway into a linear career, but rather a full bodied experience that gives you the confidence and connections for progressing into whatever you see yourself doing, ‘creative’ or not. We work bloody hard for how little we complain (although don’t be mistaken, we are also bloody vocal). And, we are flexible, not just in the bendy sense, but also in the sense that we digest any problem we are presented with and proceed to make it work for us.
As a way of exemplifying everything aforementioned, I need not look further than my fellow 2020 graduates. With lockdown detaching us all from our final months together, and immediately shattering the prospect of the glitzy final performance on a stage, we not only survived, but we thrived. And for that reason, we embodied what LCDS stands for.
When we were computer-bound and dispersed to every corner of the world, we had ample time to put what LCDS had taught us into practice. We became vital support systems, present and empathetic in group chats and video calls, understanding more than anyone each others frustration, and the sensation of being lost. We became the inventors and curators of the cyber graduation. Steam-headed by Elyssa Sena, a team formed to create what would undoubtedly be the most memorable and original Leavers’ Ceremony in the history of the school. It was a live-streamed affair that displayed the LCDS versatility of imagination, organisation and a sharp sense of humour all in one video. Finally, we threw our minds and bodies into whatever spaces we had in the spirit of creation and collaboration with four forward thinking choreographers for our newly digitised final ‘show’. In my experience, working with Leah Marojevic was a thought-altering process- an opportunity to muddle this strange situation out through the medium of dance, drawing, writing, singing, crying and much more. The LCDS dancer is one that can accept the present, but also predict and thus create the future. Leah’s Going Ghost captured what it is to be emerging into the world where dance is becoming more technologically advanced and genius than ever. As a result, it is now this year of graduates that are drafting the blueprints for the next high-tech dance revolution.
Essentially, the pandemic has only heightened what LCDS stands for: creating individuals with the power to forge their own paths and maintain morale even when faced with the pandemic’s gut-punch. I’m so proud to look upon my peers, and despite the distance, I feel their force.
From the ones teaching class in the newly opened studios, to those teaching from their repurposed garages. Those that have their MAs or apprenticeships waiting for them in the near, less virus-riddled future, or those that have decided to step away from dance to pursue brave new adventures. My friends who are working hard to stay in the big smoke, poised for when the art world reopens again, and those who are residing back in their various homes with space to breathe and prepare for whatever the future is brewing up. The tattoo artists, the photographers, the musicians, the activists. The ones relentlessly creating from their bedrooms, the ones tired of creating, the ones just tired. The plans that fell through, and the new ones we now have to make. Every single one of us captures the intense and varied spirit of LCDS. There is no single factory made product of this school, yet we all come out boasting big and beautiful feathers of sheer resilience and potential. What a flock of inspiring graduates we are!