Miles Pietsch prepares to film one of the 26 after-school dance classes that performed during one week at the Downtown Community Center. Photo: Carl Glassman/Tribeca Trib
Since 2010, Manhattan Youth’s after-school dance classes have put on their annual spring concerts in a PS/89 auditorium packed with their wildly adoring families.
But not this month, when the 270 kids from 26 classes and seven sites showed off their moves in the emptiness of the Downtown Community Center’s ground floor Great Hall.
The concert preparations began in February, amid uncertainty over the availability of the auditorium, due to possible Covid restrictions. “We couldn’t take any chances,” said Susan Kay, who planned and managed the annual dance concert with the assistance of Tasha Hunter. “The worst thing that could happen is if we didn’t have a space at the last minute, and we wouldn’t be prepared for it.”
Instead, Kay chose to video the performances for later viewing, no live audience allowed. Logistically, she said, filming the many classes over six days was more challenging than the staged productions. Each day over the course of a week, eight or nine classes came to the Tribeca center after school, with a 45-minute time slot allotted for each one.
“We have had to stagger the kids coming in, getting them in and out, and we had to figure out how do we do 26 classes,” Kay said Sunday, as the final day of performances began. “It’s like insane. But it’s fine.”
“And look at them,” she added, glancing at a group of fidgeting little girls waiting their turn to perform. “They’re so happy. They worked all semester towards something, at least they have something to hold on to.”
Constance Tarbox has been creating the costumes from the beginning, even after moving to Gettysburg, Pa., a few years ago. But until this year she could do her fittings on the day of the performances. “This one was tricky because I had to send all the costumes up a month in advance so we could do all the refitting in advance,” she said. “But for a first time doing that kind of thing,” she added, “there were remarkably few issues.”
Kay said she is “pretty sure” the performances will be back on stage next year. “But with everything we’ve been through, let’s just get through this year.”
“We’re grateful,” she added, “that we can even do this.”
