Courtesy of SJCC Dance Department

The SJCC Dance Department presents its first virtual performance on May 8.

The SJCC Dance program will hold a Facebook viewing party of “Dancing Distant”, a virtual dance performance on Friday, May 8 at 7:30 p.m.

The show will include dance faculty, students and guest performers. The viewing party will be on the program’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/SJCCdance/.

The SJCC dance program’s May performance was canceled because of COVID-19 concerns and the shutdown of campus.

Dance classes at SJCC have been forced to move to a remote format. Though dance classes rely on hands-on, in-person instruction, instructors at SJCC have adjusted to teaching online.

“Most of the instructors have been using synchronous class meetings where the instructor and students log into Zoom at the same time and teach/observe and give feedback as best they can in real time,” Amber McCall, SJCC dance instructor, who is in charge of the performances, said by email.

Most dance classes at SJCC are technique classes that were held in a dance studio where students have space and special floors to learn properly. Now all classes are taught over Zoom meetings.

“Learning dance online was a hard transition,” said Cerrina Kim, 19, graphic design major, who will perform in the virtual dance performance. “We had to find our own space at home to dance in. Also, Zoom lags, which makes it hard to learn new choreography.”

Though students are being limited by the space in their homes, dance instructors continue to provide instruction online despite the challenges of not having in-person critiques.

“If you had asked me in January if I would be teaching ballet and modern (dance) online, I would have said no, that’s ridiculous! Why would I want to teach ballet online?” McCall wrote in an email. “Would I prefer to be back in the studio? Absolutely! Would I do so at the risk of peoples’ health? No, of course not!”

People can RSVP for the show at https://www.facebook.com/events/540270413579978/.