What It's Like to Attend a Virtual Dance Convention
During this new era of social distancing, the dance world has gotten pretty creative. Tons of teachers, studios,
competitions, and conventions have stepped up to the plate to help fill our living rooms with virtual dance content. But what’s it really like to attend a dance convention online?
Dance Spirit followed JT Church, “Dancing With The Stars: Juniors” pro and “So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation” runner-up, as he spent the weekend attending REVEL’s “Rev-Virtual” online convention experience.
Hey guys! I have been a special guest faculty assistant for REVEL Dance Convention for the last four years. So I was excited to find out they’d be hosting a series of online convention weekends. With everything that’s going on, I’ve been missing conventions so much. I knew it’d be great to be able to keep up my training.
Two of my best friends, Jordan and Taylor Goldberg—I dance with them at Club Dance—asked me to come over to their home studio so we could take REVEL’s online classes together. Here’s how it all went.
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We are logged into REV-VIRTUAL and getting ready for classes to start on Day 1.
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Gearing up for Valerie Rockey’s tap class, sans tap shoes
courtesy Leslie Church
So excited for jazz funk with Zachary Venegas. The classes were all on REVEL’s website, and were live-streamed, similar to how Instagram Live works. The teachers can’t see you and you’re not able to pause the video, so you definitely have to pay attention and stay focused. For some of the classes, I projected my laptop onto this larger screen so I could see better.
courtesy Leslie Church
Logged into REVEL’s website and ready for day 2 of classes to start. Up first, Jaimie Goodwin—she’s one of my favorite teachers.
courtesy Leslie Church
Getting jazzy with Derek Mitchell
courtesy Leslie Church
A quick water break in the middle of Derek Mitchell’s theatre jazz class. Don’t mind Kona (the pup), who wanted to get in on some virtual classes as well.
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Taking Jonathan and Oksansa’s Ballroom class
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Stay healthy and safe everyone!
Overall, I had a great weekend. It was nice to have three solid hours of training back-to-back over two days. I’m trying to stay in shape for when my studio opens again, and this was by far the most dancing I’ve done since we started social distancing.
