In­nis Fran­cis

in­nis_fran­cis@ya­hoo.com

How we ad­just our lives while liv­ing with the COVID 19 pan­dem­ic is the fo­cus of a vir­tu­al show by the Al­pha Dance Pro­duc­tion set for Au­gust 8. Chore­o­graphed by the dance troupe’s artis­tic di­rec­tor Bev­er­ley-Ann Ot­t­ley, Re­set puts the spot­light on the to­tal per­son hav­ing to ad­just the mind, emo­tions, bod­ies, and phys­i­cal spaces.

Ot­t­ley, who re­cent­ly com­plet­ed a the­sis for her Mas­ter’s de­gree in Dance Move­ment Ther­a­py, has been ex­plor­ing dance as ther­a­py.

She ex­plained: “Men­tal­ly we are not ful­ly re­cov­ered, the se­nior dancers all will­ing­ly agreed that dance and be­ing part of pro­duc­tion once again would help to re­gain their sta­bil­i­ty. With this in mind, we hope to reach per­sons from all cor­ners of the world and use our gift of dance to in­fil­trate the spaces in their lives that the pan­dem­ic might have at­tacked. We quick­ly re­al­ized that we could use this vir­tu­al plat­form to reach a wider au­di­ence than we would have if it were done with­in a phys­i­cal space.”

Dur­ing the plan­ning of the show, one of Ot­t­ley’s long-stand­ing spon­sors be­came ter­mi­nal­ly ill.

“News came of the di­rec­tor of Sound­vi­sion Ltd be­ing strick­en with can­cer and in need of funds for med­ical ex­pens­es, so on the day we will have an ac­count set up on Go­FundMe and there will be a $50 charge per lo­gin for the show,” she said

The group usu­al­ly stages a show every year at the Na­pari­ma Bowl in San Fer­nan­do. How­ev­er, be­cause of pan­dem­ic re­stric­tion’s Al­pha’s last pro­duc­tion was held vir­tu­al­ly on Face­book last Ju­ly.

Ot­t­ley said the group has been con­duct­ing vir­tu­al class­es for the last 15 months and al­though there are chal­lenges with on­line tu­tor­ing, she has been able to en­list dancers from as far as Flori­da and has seen a growth in num­bers over the last five months.