Hi Liz and All,

The Bloomington Old Time Music and Dance Group (Indiana) has been holding a weekly contra dance outdoors on Wednesday nights since the beginning of June (11 dances so far). To date it has gone very well and our members have been very grateful for both the safety measures we have taken as well as the opportunity to gather and hear live music and dance again. That said, with the changing news of transmissibility of the Delta variant even among those who are vaccinated, our board is now having continuous discussions of whether we should stop holding the dance or modify procedures. None in attendance have come down with Covid to our knowledge (and given our community dynamics and knowledge of each other, we are likely to have known).

Here is how we have run our dance since the beginning of June:

• Dance held outdoors in a large open-air pavilion. Plenty of room for people to remain distanced as they like.
• When we started these dances, our community transmission was at the lowest category level according to state of Indiana and CDC guidelines.
• Must be a member of our group to participate. We did allow new members to join. This helps make sure we have contact information for all in attendance, and demonstrates some commitment to our group.
• Each person (including performers) must show proof of vaccination. We keep a list of our members and highlight the names when they show proof for reference in future weeks.
• Every person gets a wristband when they check in. That lets everyone else know their vaccination has been verified by us. Originally, we had two different color wrist bands for those who were ok with regular contra swings, and others who might want to keep more distance while swinging or might not want to do twirls, etc. I know partners should always ask that, but this helped make it more clear, especially as folks encountered neighbors in a line.
• We did not advertise our dance outside of our group. We sent our weekly email to our list and posted on our Facebook page. We did gain a number of new members, but that was through current members bringing friends who joined. This ensured that we knew everyone in attendance. Each person had a personal connection to at least one other and usually multiple other people present. Initially, we wanted to establish our procedures and to create a safe space for our current members to find their comfort level with gathering and dancing again.
• We are a small group in a relatively small community. We have had between 22 and 40 people attend including performers. We have had between 10 and 22 people dancing at any one time. Some people have never felt comfortable dancing in the contra line, but do enjoy listening to the music or dancing by themselves, or even doing the hula hoop to the music! We have emphasized we want everyone to participate at their comfort level and everyone has been very kind and accepting of different people’s comfort levels. Masks have been optional and worn by a few (that is now increasing).
• We have plenty of hand sanitizer bottles out at check-in and on the dance stage.
• Dance is shorter than in pre-Covid times. When we started we made it just an hour. Now it is usually about 80 minutes long with no designated break.
• We had been holding a weekly Zoom dance before this that began in March, 2020 when things shut down with the pandemic. We searched for options to keep the online option open, but could not find an outdoor location where we also had a strong internet signal. Some weeks we are able to allow others to listen in (no video) through a radio broadcast. We had a loyal Zoom following, and were nervous about losing that. But we now have a loyal in-person gathering with some, but not a great deal of overlap with the Zoom audience (mostly organizers/board members).
• Both our Zoom and our in-person audiences have been generous financially where we are able to give 100% of donations received to the performers. We made the in-person dance by donation instead of a set fee, and that has worked well. We have a lower guarantee to the band and caller than we did pre-Covid, but it often works out that the performers get about what they would have for our prior Wednesday night dances even though the playing time is less than before.

How that is changing:

Last week we decided to offer two contra lines – one restricted to dancers wearing masks and one where masks were optional. We changed the meaning of the different wrist band colors to signify this. It ended up working quite well. We ended up with 8 dancers in each group. There were some people who initially said they were open to wearing a mask while dancing, but once they tried it, they found they had difficulty breathing, and discovered it would be hard for them to dance with a mask on. The last two weeks we asked people to wear a mask when they check in. This last week, we made masks available for anyone who didn’t come prepared for that. Going forward with having two very small contra lines, we are making sure our callers are aware when they plan their program to account for that.

Our Board has been discussing the need to modify procedures via email in recent weeks, and also discussed at our board meeting yesterday. We have a few board members who would like to require masks while dancing or even discontinue holding the dance in person. Others would like to keep things as they are or step back to meeting in person, but with people dancing solo or with their designated partner while staying physically distanced from others. I would say the majority of our dancers come alone, so most do not have partners in their household. Different people have different opinions about whether it is still relatively safe to continue dancing as long as we are outdoors.

We have definitely canceled a planned one day dance event in October that was to be held indoors. If we continue with our weekly dance, it will be outdoors throughout September and perhaps into October. None of us on the board would consider an indoor dance at this time. We have begun buying lights and such as it begins to get dark a little earlier. We also moved the start time of our dance up to 7:30 pm to have more daylight (it used to start at 8 pm).

Personally, I am feeling much more uneasy about dancing so close with others even though they are vaccinated and we are outdoors. I wore a mask and danced only with others who were masked last week. The week prior I did not join the contra line. I wore a mask and only danced by myself and with one other person who was also masked. I do know people locally who were vaccinated and still got Covid (first outbreak was among local blues musicians). Each case seemed to be indoors, and while they may have initially gotten it from someone who was unvaccinated, there were cases where that vaccinated person went home and passed it on to their vaccinated partner. We now have a mask mandate in our county for indoor venues.

We have worked so hard to keep our community together through this. We were very proud to hold a successful weekly dance throughout on Zoom. However, now I doubt we will have the enthusiasm or interest to participate in a Zoom event if we discontinue our in-person dance. It is disheartening. Yet, I believe that if we were just deciding today whether to start back with an in-person dance, our board wouldn’t even consider it given the current numbers and the information about Delta. With having a successful in-person dance running the past 11 weeks, it’s tough to cancel it once again. The dance has brought great joy to those who have participated and has been good for everyone’s spirits.

--Mary Jean Regoli (she/her)

Board Member/Treasurer for Bloomington Old Time Music and Dance Group

Sent from Mail for Windows

From: Liz Burkhart via Organizers
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2021 4:43 PM
To: organizers@lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Organizers] Seeking news on covid infections from dances with vaccination

Hi all, with some dances resuming for the summer, I'd like to hear how that's been for dance communities. Have groups started and then stopped? Is there any news of infections from dance camps or weekends? I know Pinewoods heightened their requirements (from just vaccination to also multiple negative tests + masking for the first few days of American Week), and then cancelled the rest of their camps. 

Thanks,
Liz Burkhart (she/her)
Organizer with Lavender Country and Folk Dancers