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.
