Ah, 2020… what a year it’s been. From the very beginning the threat of a global health crisis was looming over us here in the United States, and it wasn’t long before it reached our doorsteps. With it came uncertainty, anxiety, and impending grief. This would become a year of questioning: What will we do if…? What will happen when…? What about…? and many more like this. We became unmoored from spaces that held familiarity, comfort, safety, and above all community. Innovation and creativity began to be marred by risk-assessment and cost-benefit analysis. Suffering has touched so many of us in this year which has, at times, felt like a lifetime. It is important to reflect and affirm the necessity to grieve in the wake of this year, knowing that as the calendar turns us to 2021, the uncertainty will not come to an end.

Of course, it is vital in this reflection to acknowledge the disproportionate suffering in communities of color, marginality, and precarity during this tumultuous year. Not only are these communities faced with the barriers to adequate health care during this current global crisis due to carceral status, racial difference, or extreme socioeconomic disparity, but we have also seen stark political indifference to personal autonomy and sovereignty that should be fundamental to our daily lives on the basis of our shared humanity. We have seen this for decades, but most recently as our own community was rocked by the murders of Casey Goodson, Jr. and Andre Hill by the Franklin County Sheriff and Columbus Police, respectively. To me, it felt like I was witnessing another traversal of the circular pathway of grief deeply trodden by POC in our community and around the world, a reflection back from the global spotlight on the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and too many others. I thought especially of the murders of Tyre King and Henry Green from our all-too-recent past, marking the addition of questions to our growing list of uncertainties about justice, equity, and privilege.

Uncertainty has a way of transforming our solid foundations to shifting sands. As we struggle with balance under these conditions our ability to maintain center becomes increasingly difficult, if not impossible at times. As dance and performance artists we so often turn to some kind of interpersonal connectivity under duress. But how would we cultivate, create, navigate under these new conditions? How would we disrupt, refigure, share, or even protest without putting our communities at risk? And what of those communities for whom interpersonal connection is vital to subsistence? For many, launching into the virtual sphere seemed at least a temporary means to make up for what was lost, so long as we could find access to the minimum technological requirements to do so. While some found tremendous generativity in this new sphere, there were also those among us who marked this grief-space noting what had been lost. But reflecting on this also give us a critical lens to turn around on our before-spaces and to carry with us into our future-spaces, with the invitation to note the innovation and exclusion, the creation and the degredation that exists and has existed in varying degrees of dominance all along.

To that end, a recognition that there is possibility in painful transformation. I am reminded that, though we are in for a tough winter full of ongoing uncertainty, spring brings new promise. Each time I see a blossom open, or a new plant spring up from the earth I also see the violence inherent to it’s growth journey. Recently, CDA hosted a virtual “Holiday Pity Party” event where members of our dance and performance community were able fellowship around what 2020 might have given us to celebrate, but also to express what 2021 might have in store for us to look forward to. What I appreciated most about this was the opportunity to situate myself on a pivot-point between realities: one lived, one yet-to-become. Though still mired in uncertainty, it was also a more singular location that, for me, helped center some of the unbalanced feelings that have clouded this year. We are in a critical moment of transition. Some of our trauma has already brought forth enough beauty to celebrate. To be sure, this is not always the case, and elevating positivity to a toxic level is not the goal of this reflection. But at least in some small moments like the one I outline here, the potential for change becomes more apparent. Though change is painful, I remain encouraged by the power of community that we hope CDA can continue to cultivate.

And so, I feel called to think with our dance and performance community about how we can re/imagine our connections, our groundedness, our potential differently as we look forward to what this new year will bring us. This is one of the core goals of CDA’s growing, community centered interests. As we continue to grow our potential to serve as a foundation for the innovative and dynamic makers and movers of Central Ohio, we find encouragement most in the small ways that we have been able to come together and celebrate one another’s vibrancy. We are poised for a leap into some very exciting new territory as an organization, and—with equal parts trepidation and gusto—can’t wait to share with all of you the potential that we hope to cultivate and deliver. Keep moving and shaking, mixing and making in new and invigorating ways. Here’s to a fellowship to come. We hold our community in regard and love until we can commune again!

Sarah Dove, Secretary—Columbus Dance Alliance,

on behalf of the Spotlight Committee