As COVID-19 cases continue to rise across the United States, so do postponements and cancellations of dance performances. While DC-based dance artist Sarah Beth Oppenheim comes to terms with the rescheduling of her most recent work, Holster Buffalo, she also mourns the loss of momentum she associates with her artistic process.
Sarah Beth Oppenheim, founder of Heart Stück Bernie, photo by Zachary Z. Handler
Choreographing under the moniker Heart Stück Bernie, Oppenheim has contributed to the metropolitan Washington, D.C., dance community in multiple ways throughout the past couple of years. She teaches both at American and George Washington universities. With her company, she performed works through the Kennedy Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project, and she has choreographed as an artist in residence at Dance Place.
Holster Buffalo was scheduled to premiere at Dance Place on April 4-5, 2020, but with the pandemic making group gatherings unsafe, Oppenheim and her collaborators have resorted to connecting online, preparing a Dance Place Facebook Live event for April 18 at 6:30 p.m.
Read more about how Oppenheim is coping with social distancing as well as why she may need to revisit her work due to our rapidly changing country.
How has the coronavirus pandemic affected your current projects?
Holster Buffalo has been postponed indefinitely, and my last project as artist in residence at Dance Place, a site-specific work for 28 dancers, which was slated for July, has also been postponed. Dance Place has been nothing but supportive and optimistic, and I am incredibly lucky to still be earning 75 percent of my contracted artist fees, regardless of whether postponement turns into cancellation. I am relieved that I can pay my dancers. I think it goes without saying that none of this feels personal, but there is still a mourning period – a sense of sadness and loss.
Holster Buffalo was about putting extremely difficult content on stage and asking the audience to consider race, inequity, and division in the contemporary American landscape. That is now different. It will look different in some months. Will an audience want to cautiously return to theaters and engage with this sort of material? I think the work will need to shift in response to what we’re all feeling, and how we’re all changing. Which brings me back to a sense of loss for the months of work we’ve already done and have now been rendered outdated! It’s okay. We’re okay. But we can still mourn for this loss before moving on entirely.
Are you struggling with working from home?
Yes. I am missing [my son’s babysitters]. I am missing time spent alone to, well, do anything, but to think exclusively about my art. I can feel my creativity ebbing. I can feel myself falling into a professional slump. But here’s what's amazing about it: I'm spending way more time with my 8-month-old son than my normal work and production schedule would have allowed. I’ve gained roughly three hours to each day by cutting out my commute ... and, ultimately, I feel incredibly lucky that I can keep teaching. I love teaching more than most things, and I would be so saddened to lose the connection with my students at the universities and my friends and colleagues at Dance Place.
Oppenheim’s “Render Edit,” photo by C. Stanley Photography
Any advice for fellow dancers or other dance enthusiasts during this time of social distancing?
For dance enthusiasts, NOW is the time! The amount of archival content being made available by companies and online platforms all over the world (much of it for FREE) is astonishing. I can not take full advantage because we don’t do screen time with the baby, but my goodness. I could otherwise watch performances (historical and contemporary) all the live-long day. It’s great for my students!
As far as advice goes? A day with dance is a better day. I started my first dance company in Berlin in 2005 – from my kitchen rehearsal space. That’s when I started making dance for apartments and houses. So, this sort of feels like returning home.
What have you had to do to shift this new piece, Holster Buffalo, from live theater to the streaming environment?
We’re gearing up right now to create some digital content for a livestream on Vimeo. We’ve been working on material -- some old, a little bit new. Dance Place is excited to support the virtual endeavors of its canceled artists. But, so is everybody right now .... and I don’t want to offer more of the same. I don’t have rehearsal footage that I want to share. I don’t feel confident about suddenly shifting into a dance film type of project. And I don’t want to present something that feels tone deaf to current events.
We’re also trying to figure out how to keep the essence of Heart Stück Bernie in this move to online content. (I am notoriously analog.) So ... stay tuned! One thing we are definitely doing is sharing the “120 Project” documentary online. We have a viewing party set for this Thursday, April 16. And part of our program this weekend will include a live (virtual, of course) Q&A with some members of the cast and a community facilitator!
Oppenheimer’s “Render Edit,” photo by C. Stanley Photography
Who has inspired you the most during this challenging time?
Two fearless leaders in D.C. right now include my boss Britta Joy Peterson [director of the dance program] at American University and my mentor Christopher K. Morgan [artistic and executive director] at Dance Place. They are both the epitome of calm, cool and collected. They have both made themselves available with resources, emotional support and good humor. I am thankful to work for, and virtually near, them. I send a major shout-out for the enthusiasm, digital savvy and love of the entire Dance Place team.
Most inspiring? The way the dance community has come together. Faster than most other industries or fields, we shifted online, we changed our syllabi, we’re offering resources to each other, and we’re largely doing this for free – ensuring access, encouraging joy through movement, and modeling a sense of normalcy amidst the otherwise unknown. One example, Katherine Disenhof’s site dancingalonetogether.org is incredible. I kiss its collective hand, clap the floor at its collective moving feet, thank my lucky stars to partake of all it is offering. I am inspired by our costume designers making masks. I am inspired by our fellow artists offering their services to earn money for other artists affected by cancellations, loss of work and income. I am enamored, but not surprised, by how our dance community is so flexible, creative, generous and beastly in its impact.
Dance Place hosts an online viewing party of the “120 Project” documentary Thursday, April 16 at 7.45 p.m. It will be streamed from Heart Stück Bernie's Facebook page.
Dance Place hosts a live virtual presentation that includes insight into the Heart Stück Bernie process, its “120 Project,” Holster Buffalo footage, and a cast conversation moderated by Ama Law. This presentation is meant to be a community connection point to discuss art and how it’s changing right now. Livestream on Dance Place’s website, April 18, 6:30 p.m. EST (rebroadcast on Facebook, April 19, 6:30 p.m. EST).