Stories of Resilience: Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami

From the beginning of the pandemic, we approached the virtual world like singing for our supper, but without clear direction or intention. And because our performance revenue stream had screeched to a halt, everyone involved was basically volunteering their time to keep the company “active”. The welcome relief funding from South Arts provided us with essential resources to re-group, define a purpose, and re-imagine our activities. We made a conscious shift in energy and repositioned ourselves not according to what everyone else was doing, but what we felt made sense for us. The revving of our engines manifested unexpected opportunities, like SMDCAC’s “Sessions”, Palm Beach Cultural Council’s “Art Shift”, and The Kennedy Center’s ”Arts Across America” (facilitated by South Arts), which helped give us purpose again. We solidified existing partnerships and fostered new corporate relationships. We used digital platforms to serve those in our community that we hadn’t been able, or even thought, to reach before. We organized our DDTM@Home virtual programming efforts around an enhanced investment in our live season that was eventually to come, and in large part on our dancers; focusing on serving their artistic needs in a year of lockdown. While our virtual activities did not earn us financial revenues to speak of, they earned us recognition, additional support, and respect. More relief funds eventually materialized from Miami-Dade County, the State of Florida, and The Miami Foundation. Our continued activities helped garner us $13,000 in crowdfunding support on Give Miami Day, and most importantly, they strengthened our organizational drive, mission, and unified spirit during a time of major turmoil. Focusing our efforts collectively, in strange new ways allowed us to emerge in 2021 renewed, refocused, and reenergized for our return to live performance.

We are often asked about “silver linings”. They can be terribly hard to weed out while in the midst of loss and pain, but if there were one for Dimensions Dance Theatre of Miami, it was that for an instant in 2020, we enjoyed the fruits of an even playing field. Organizations big and small, established and new, were all in the same boat; and all tasked with responding to new “terms & conditions”. We were all experiencing panic, strife, and struggle, and stood on common ground. The virtual stage, at first, seemed unconcerned with budget, popularity, or prestige. This new platform called us all to do what we inherently do best as artists: serve the humanity within the art form. It seemed like across the globe we were one in our desperation to express ourselves. We had a shared urgency and therapeutic goal to heal ourselves and others. For a brief moment, we enjoyed solidarity. We were a community that supported each other, and felt for each other.

We initially approached the digital world with hesitancy, and each project was cautiously produced as “experiment”. But we quickly realized that despite our apprehension, our dabbling was having a positive impact on the organization and our constituency. People were craving human and artistic connection, and we were providing it, even if in a low budget, no-frills way. We began to understand that being young was actually to our advantage as there were few expectations for our virtual and technical capabilities; people were pleased enough just to connect with us and get to know the company a bit better.

Small can be mighty, and an unexpected shift can sometimes have a welcome result. We motivated ourselves with goals that would continue to serve our mission and vision; goals that were collectively important to us all on a personal level, not a corporate one. We invested in our own agility and adaptability, and took advantage of our intrinsic ability to operate on a shoestring budget. Energy begets energy, and as the trajectory of our activities advanced, our private donors began stepping back up to the philanthropic plate - many with renewed generosity and a belief in us that helped us to kickstart our 2021 return to the stage. In January 2021 we performed live for the first time since the pandemic in collaboration with our sister company Ballet Vero Beach, and this February, we re-ignited our live performance season here at home presented by the South Miami Dade Cultural Arts Center - outdoors, and for a completely sold out (socially distanced) audience. And once again, we are able to exhale.

Start from nothing; stop for nothing.