Editor's Letter
Just as i sat down to write this letter on Friday, Nov. 20th, Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced that Toronto (where The Dance Current is based and where I live) would be moving back into lockdown the following Monday. I can’t say I was entirely surprised, but it was hard not to feel like the city was being flung back into the first days of the pandemic. Two days later, on Sunday, Nov. 22nd, it snowed all day. Great.
I usually like when the seasons change, but this hefty snowfall felt foreboding. As of now, I have no idea when we’ll be able to go back to the office, or when I'll be able to visit my family again. But all of that being said, I consider The Dance Current lucky. It’s hard not to; we’ve maintained operations and are even taking a big step forward.
This is the first of our newly designed issues. We’ve also moved to printing quarterly, which means bigger issues in your mailbox.
This shift has been in the works for a long time, and while it certainly supports the sustainability of the magazine, it’s also responding to the demand for online journalism. So, now you can expect more on thedancecurrent.com. Subscribers can also expect exclusive digital content. Now, back to the issue in your hands.
On the cover is Siphesihle November, first soloist at The National Ballet of Canada. The photo was taken last spring by Karolina Kuras and is the first of our photo essay, “Ballet in the Streets.” The photos come from a series of COVID-19-style photo shoots by Kuras.
The feature “Honing Resiliency” is written by Lee Slinger, a former editor of this magazine. She writes about how although post-secondary dance education has been affected by the pandemic, teachers are working to keep students inspired and focused on important qualities, like resiliency.
Jillian Groening profiles Kevin Jesuino, a multidisciplinary artist in Calgary whose latest work, Cruising at 30 Kilometers a Second and Attempting Not To Crash, is scheduled to premiere in February. Part of Mile Zero Dance’s 35th season, the work, as Groening writes, “asks how, by embracing failure and collapse, new modes of being might emerge.” The virtual performance will be premiering approximately one year after COVID-19 cases started popping up in Canada.
Written by The Dance Current’s publisher, Kallee Lins, our “In Conversation” feature unpacks the funder-fundee relationship and whether emergency granting measures sparked by the pandemic (easier applications, money landing in pockets faster) can alter long-standing issues within granting systems.
All in all, this issue includes a lot of ideas for how we can evolve with the current times. As I think about that and as I finish writing this letter on the first day of another lockdown, I think I can do the same and deal with the snow.