Danzmode

If you think the financial and emotional toll of this pandemic on dance studios isn't real, please read this. This year has every single studio hanging by a thread and it's bad enough we don't get any financial support but we can't even seem to summon any respect for what we do. It truly is difficult to keep going every day. 'We fought through the 6 months of being closed, then decided to reopen for this season even though it was barely possible to continue... but still push...ed forward, did everything right beyond measures and then voluntarily closed for the benefit of the dance community and then were mandated to close and then told to reopen and then the night of reopening told to close again. There is no support system, there is no help, we have stressed every possible way and it's unfortunately just not in the books to continue like this. Unfortunately it comes down to the simple facts that this is not okay. We have already watched so much of what we worked 10 years for and sacrificed so much for wash away in moments and it can't continue both financially but most importantly, emotionally. We truly hope that no one else has to get to this point and that they have different outcomes.' See more

Good news! For everyone who has signed our petition, wrote letters and emails, called bureaucracies, we want to tell you how much we appreciate your hard work!! As of today we are open! Check your email tonight for an update but we are happy to report that classes will fully resume tomorrow, Friday! Happy tears have been flowing from all of us.

Shared from our good friend Jocelyn at Eleve Training Centre in Port Coquitlam! We have been closed for 11 days with no answers or guidance from Fraser Health. Please let us give your children their favourite activity and passion back. Dance is safe and right now your kids need us more than ever!

Here we are ready to start another week advocating on behalf of all dancers in our region. According to the Provincial Health Order, the only thing excluded from the expiry next Monday November 23rd at noon is group fitness classes which we are considered. Fraser Health is overwhelmed and still has not given us guidelines on reopening while Vancouver Coastal approved studios as of last Thursday. This means we are not closed for two weeks, we are closed indefinitely. We are ...losing revenue not for two weeks, but indefinitely. We are still paying rent for buildings we may not be using indefinitely. Zoom sounds like an easy answer but if it was then why wouldn't we just give up our space and teach on Zoom permanently. Because we care about our dancers. We care that dance involves impact on their joints that needs the special floors we offer. We care that dance involves alignment of your body that needs to be seen from head to toe. We care that dance involves full range of motion and the ability to move in all directions. As a passionate advocate for the arts, I personally care that the emphasis in our society is on sports without recognition of how the arts enriches all of us on a daily basis. Dance is the third highest attended extra curricular activity in Canada, just behind swimming and soccer with almost 100,000 more participants than youth hockey. Please help us apply pressure to our government. As studios we are hurting but your children are hurting too.

The update for today: Last Saturday the province closed group fitness activities for two weeks in the Fraser Health and Vancouver Coastal health regions with additional clarification that once our COVID safety plans were approved we could reopen, even before the two weeks had elapsed. By Tuesday, Vancouver Coastal had a multi page document available to outline plans and submissions for reopening. By Thursday, facilities were approved to reopen with perhaps a couple modificat...ions to their existing plans, the ones that they had been using since June. The inconsistency ranges from 'increase the size of your dance space per person by 50%' to 'make the signs on your front door multilingual'. So the approval is rather willy nilly but at least they are being reopened. Today is Friday and for those of us in Fraser Health there has been zero communication. We have had no direction or plan given to us. Some of us have been told to not use the Vancouver Coastal submission document. Due to the lack of planning by Fraser Health our medical health officers are currently moved into contact tracing rather than working on this. We have had no response whether we communicate with them by phone, email, or in person and to be honest it feels like they are just trying to run out the clock of the two week order rather than giving us any guidance. What does this mean? It means you can currently take a spin class in the city of Vancouver with heavy breathing, no masks, no ventilation, and all the chit chat in the parking lot that you want while we can't hold a creative movement class for 4 year olds when there are only 3 of them in a room designed for 12 kids and no real exercise at all because step-flamingo-hop is hardly aerobic. This picture is of one of our studios with 8 foot squares, walkways around all sides and through the middle, doors opening directly to the parking lot, and an interior bathroom. If you agree this situation is crazy and inconsistent please share our posts, comment below, and keep signing our petition. At the very least we would appreciate a Zoom meeting to explain our concerns. http://chng.it/8qJQpWQR @fraserhealth @johnhorgan4bc

Honouring and remembering our veterans today. #remembranceday #lestweforget #poppy #peace #soldiers #veterans

Today's press briefing was really confusing for most of us. Our COVID protocols have been in use since June 1st, parents all over BC feel very comfortable with their children in dance, and yet the government has unilaterally decided we are not doing enough without having ever asked any dance studio for their policies. Even worse, the information we need to tell us how they want us to proceed isn't even available yet. We want to keep everyone safe and we want to be held acco...untable. But we also want decisions that are based on science to at least have the science ready for us to learn from. Until Saturday the government has never expressed that dance studios were part of the rising COVID cases, so why is closing us part of the solution? Please sign the petition and keep sharing. http://chng.it/vQmSM68Z