July 13, 2020
Dear Not Just Dance Families,
It has been a little while since I’ve done an update and figured you might like some information about re-opening procedures at Not Just Dance for the fall. Again, I’d like to start by thanking all of you for all of your support over the past few months! Since the last time we spoke, we have successfully completed performances of A Chorus Line and our Twisted Tales production of Mr. Goose’s Charlie Chocolate and the Charming Chips and are ½ way through with the Seussical performances. In some cases, we have been able to secure the rights to do a digital ticket and in some cases, we were not granted permission. Our audiences have been small but so amazing and supportive. Thank you to everyone for following our guidelines for reopening for students and for patrons. Not Just Dance has produced Level 1 reopening Procedures (following a pandemic), reopening procedures for patrons attending performances and reopening procedures for all of our summer camps. We are working on an update for Level 3 reopening, so you will have the specifics for when students return in the fall. However, for today, I’d like to focus more high level on what reopening, in general, looks like at Not Just Dance.
We will be offering both live and virtual classes. What that looks like will depend on the type of class. Also, you don’t need to commit to either live or virtual at the start of the year. You can start virtually and change to live further down the line. Or, you can start live and switch back and forth throughout the year. If we need to close the studio again because of the pandemic, all classes will go to virtual within 1 week of the closure.
Because we will be offering virtual classes, our policies will be updated to include information on expectations for attending Virtual classes. At this point, we plan to continue to use Zoom as our platform for virtual classes. We have learned a lot over the past few months and are incorporated what we have learned in how we use the technology and how we update our policies in terms of student expectations.
For private coaching which includes private voice lessons, all of our teachers are offering virtual classes. For live classes, we have made the entire studio available to our voice students. In person live classes can be held in the theatre, on the dance floor or in our music room (in the front). All options provide over 10 feet of separation between the teacher and student. If you would prefer a live lesson, we do have at least one teacher available for live lessons. Also, if you would prefer lessons in the theatre (where lots of feet of separation can be offered), simply let us know. Our default room is the theatre for all live voice lessons.
For dance classes, we will offer live instruction, with the option for students to attend dance classes virtually. If we know that all students will attend live, then we won’t initiate the Zoom meeting room. However, if a student would like to attend a particular class virtually, we just need to know and will make sure the student has the appropriate information to attend virtually from home. This option will be available throughout the year. And, in fact, when you look at the dance class dates and information on the website, you’ll see that there are virtual classes already on the schedule.
For all theatre classes, students will get the most by attending live. However, we will allow students to attend these classes virtually as well. That way students can still learn music and choreography remotely. We ask all parents that would like to start theatre classes virtually to have a conversation with me so I can understand your concerns and what your thought process is for when you might be comfortable returning to live classes. Obviously, at some point, we will need to have students attending live. However, that date will change depending on the class and the date of performances. All performances will be live. Since there is no way to predict what will happen with future closures, for now, we are assuming all performances will happen as advertised on the website.
For Tech Theatre classes, we are still discussing what virtual might look like. At this point, we are planning for Tech Theatre classes to be live classes.
All of the information about the classes, the dates, tuition, auditions etc are on our website. For those that have already registered, please double check the start dates.
Thank you again for all of your support. We look forward to serving you in the new year as we all work together to safely return to classes.
Dawne LeKang
Owner, Not Just Dance
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