IT’S A SMALL WORLD
Lockdown gives dancer time to reflect, space to focus on ‘tiny’ things
We’re checking in with a different Saskatchewan artist each week, to talk about their life and work during COVID-19. This week, we hear from Robin Poitras in Regina.
She’s a dancer whose body often works in tandem with others. She’s an artistic director, who has had to adapt a slate of programming for the spring and summer. And, she’s a social person, for whom isolation is — somewhat surprisingly — a welcome break to accomplish some new things.
Q What does your life look like right now?
A I actually feel like I’m living in a tiny world. Partly because I’ve been, like all of us, the isolation, your world narrows. I’m going for walks and I’m getting outside, but also because I’ve been so focused in trying to get our Tiny World’s Fair (New Dance Horizons program) online, I’ve been deeply inside these tiny worlds … (and) you start to see things differently.
I think everybody I know is amazed at the detail that is emerging that has always been there, but our awareness, we catch the big strokes. And I think that the little worlds and little things that are really, really important, are more visible than they’ve ever been.
Q What has changed?
A I think the biggest thing is dance is quite physical and there’s solo dancing. I guess, like everybody else, I’m solo dancing — lots of solo dancing going on.
I miss my family. I’m seeing people from distance. … I lost a nephew, which was tragic.
I don’t know if it’s because of the (annual NDH) garden tour, but I think my first reaction when I heard about COVID was fear of food scarcity or concern around food scarcity. And I started panicking when I heard that Trump might close borders, because there’s so much about our daily life that we take for granted. And we don’t think about ‘well, where does food come from?’ I mean, they talk about kids today not knowing anything about real food production, but in general how many of us, like how long before we run out of food as a community? I felt like government should be investing in greenhouses.
I’m already thinking about winter, just, we have time now to prepare personally but also as a society. I feel like there’s big conversations that need to be had.
Q What big conversations?
A Well, I think that we should be looking at, for example, water … and with all the forest fires that we had last year, the potential for forest fires, the potential for lack of water in general, I think there should be more investment in (water security). We have a system on our building that was donated by Cleanflo that gathers rainwater, that kind of thing.
I think we should be growing more food and taking care more here and not relying so much on export.
I think to delve into a creative exploration, whatever it is, is important to keep because creativity is, to me, essential to survival. For mental health, emotional health, spiritual health.
A lot of artists and many of us in our lives, we don’t have enough time, because we’re so busy running around.
So I think it’s been a time that might hopefully provoke or provide a kind of space, maybe, for people to consider stuff that they hadn’t before. So I’m trying to stay really positive. I think for every negative there’s a positive, but to keep the focus on the positive is really hard when you feel the walls falling down around you.
Q What are you working on?
A We’re going into our 35th anniversary Aug. 1. And a situation like this, of course, makes you rethink what you do and how you do it and why you do it and who you’re reaching and what you could be doing better. So lots of research and reflection.
On a personal level ... I’ve inherited all of (my late father’s) books, which I’m getting out. But he also left me his instruments, his violin and his mandolin … so that’s something that’s been really special in this time, is having time to play music.
I’m on the go all the time, but I never have enough downtime or enough time for myself. And the terrible thing to say, that part of (isolation) I’ve enjoyed, the pressure released a little bit of that social expectation. But I really love my time alone and time with my partner and family and so that time is expanded, even though most of it’s online, but I really appreciate that.
Q What media are you consuming during self-isolation?
A The gamut is huge. Of course the entire globe of artists are all doing what we’re doing here at New Dance, which is turning our gaze to a new way of working. So I’m covering and catching lots of dance ... from all over the world.
... I watch all kinds of news and try to understand what is being said and what is going on. And I think that we all are kind of navigating that misinformation and information. And there’s a lot unknown and people can be very critical that ‘this and that person did stuff wrong.’ But I think we have to remember that we are dealing with something that is invisible to the human eye, and we have no idea.