We have managed to continue dancing during lock down, using Zoom software. We couldn’t bear the thought of no dancing at all for weeks or months, so have replaced our regular Wednesday evening meetings with Zoom meetings. The music is played in one house, broadcast via Zoom to the other houses, and the people who are there each dance in their own living rooms.
The internet delay means we are always a little bit out of sync with each other, but we aren’t likely to bump into each other if we are out of time, so it doesn’t matter. Before each dance we allocate who will dance in each position, so there is always someone moving at any one time, so we have someone dancing to look at when we are standing out.
Good points are that we do some dancing, get a bit of exercise, refresh our memories of the dance moves, and keep in touch with our dancing friends, which is probably the best thing of all.
Bad points are that when we come to a part of the dance where you have to change partner you end up dancing with an invisible person (or a teddy bear). Also, it is quite easy to lose where you are in the dance if you are watching a small picture of the other dancers on the screen and don’t have a full sized couple in front of you.
We don’t know when we will be able to get back to dancing in real life. Irish Set Dancing has a lot of close contact and hand holding, so isn’t conducive to keeping a two meter distance, or even one-meter-plus. I am thinking of some variations for when eight people are allowed to meet together.
We have decided virtual dancing during lock down is much better than no dancing at all, and well worth having a go at (though probably not for absolute beginners). Do get in touch if you would like to join us by the usual contact channels.
