Letting the show go on
School performing arts programs persevere with COVID-19 rules
The choral students at Hagerty High School this year don’t stand on risers. Those were dismantled and packed away before classes began. Instead, they sing at their desks, fitted with plastic dividers and separated by six feet.
They didn’t even sing in class until October and then just for 30 minutes at a time, moving outside well before the bell rang to finish in the fresh air. The schedule sometimes gave classmates eating lunch in the courtyard an odd show but followed national recommendations for minimizing coronavirus exposure in music rooms. The first choral concert in December was held outside, with live performers in masks and spaced-apart and some classmates joining online, singing their parts from their homes.
It was hardly ideal — like so much of 2020 — and yet it was “just incredible,” said Jarrett Warner, an 11th grader.
“It was a breath of fresh air when he said we were going to learn a song,” he said of their music teacher. “It was so nice.”
In an academic year marked by the coronavirus pandemic, schools across Central Florida have worked, not without struggles, to offer performing arts classes, despite COVID-19 restrictions.
The goal, said Hagerty Principal Rob Frasca, was “figuring out how to balance safety with opportunity.”
Band, chorus, dance, orchestra and theater are key parts of school for so many kids, so educators wanted to maintain those programs, even if they had to be altered. “We’ve found ways,”
Frasca said.
That’s meant face masks — and masks with slits for those playing instruments with mouthpieces — theater productions with small casts and summer dance team practices held in the parking lot to allow maximum space between dancers, among other changes. It’s also meant performances and competitions curtailed or held virtually.
And it’s meant some students singing, dancing and playing in front of laptops at their homes, as
thousands of youngsters are studying off campus to avoid the virus.
None of it is the same as it was pre-pandemic, but students said it’s been better than not doing their art at all.
“For what it is, it definitely is very enjoyable,” said Bella Bencomo, a seventh grader at Audubon Park School in Orlando who is learning the violin. “I’m definitely glad we can still do orchestra. It’s definitely fun to be able to create it with everyone.”
She’s studying online, so for orchestra class she plays her violin in front of her laptop, visible to classmates via Microsoft Teams.
At Hagerty, none of the performing arts classes have reported coronavirus cases from their in-person activities, which makes the face masks, hand sanitizer and efforts to maintain distance worthwhile, said Diane Hasenbank, the dance teacher and chair of the arts department.
“Yes, it’s not convenient,” she said. “Yes, it’s not comfortable. But we’re making it work, and the kids have this outlet that’s so very important to them.”
The school’s theater classes did the musical “Nunsense,” which teacher Jamaal Solomon picked in part for its small cast. That made it easier to keep students apart on stage but still allowed the teenagers to perform and to produce a show.
“We want to try to give them the sense of some type of normalcy,” Solomon said.
“It was a great experience,” said ninth grader Rylee Rozier, who worked on props for the show.
Teaching students who are both online and on campus has been challenging for many teachers this year but is particularly difficult in the performing arts where teachers are often hands on, fixing fingers on an instrument’s bow or a dance troupe’s spacing.
Bryan Munera, the Audubon music teacher, said during class his attention is divided, shifting between his in-person and online students.
“We are definitely moving at snail’s pace,” he said. “It’s totally OK.”
He’s discovered that despite the challenges of this year’s set up, it also means he spends more time focused on each student and on the fundamentals. That may benefit his music students in the long run.
“You catch all the little things,” he said.
In a class last month, he led beginning orchestra students as they tried out a new piece.
“Curl that pinky. Just roll that bow in,” Munera said as the class began. He encouraged the students in the room with him and those in boxes on his computer screen. “One more time. Some people got lost. That’s totally OK. Ready? And again, go,” he said. “That’s it. You’ve learned the first part of the song.”
When classes began in August, Hagerty’s choral teacher, Christopher Hickey, had a bleak outlook on the year. The American Choral Directors Association had recommended no singing, for fear it would spread the virus, and that was the guidance to be followed.
So Hickey taught the students in his five choral groups music theory and to play Boomwhackers, plastic tubes tuned to make notes when banged. At least, he said, they could make music.
Then in early fall, new research said singing 30 minutes at a time was safe, if the room was aired out after that. So the choral groups began going outside part way through each class, Hickey carrying his laptop with him so he could keep up with his online students as he went mobile.
His students were thrilled to be singing again, he said, and ecstatic when they learned they could do a concert in December, even with a limited audience and all the COVID-19 safety rules in place.
“It felt so good,” said ninth grader Evan Smith. “I love to perform.”
“I think,” Hickey said, “we made the best of a really, really crappy situation.”