DJD: An Integral Non-Profit in The Calgary Community

Companies like DJD are so significant for many reasons. Decidedly Jazz Dance Company is an important pillar of the Calgary community. They provide resources to practice movement and mental health, and are producing innovative health services for more than just dance. Their research on the potential for movement and dance management to improve wellbeing for people of all ages and abilities, and currently people with Parkinson’s disease, is just one of the many reasons we are proud to support them! Read below for a Q&A on how DJD has weathered the 2020-2021 storm using movement and mindfulness.

Who is DJD:

Established in 1984, DJD is one of only a handful of professional jazz dance organizations in North America. Jazz was born in America of African American roots and the Black American experience, at DJD we acknowledge that we are guests in jazz and approach our work with reverence and respect for the roots and history of the form.  We are a professional company, a professional training program, and Calgary’s largest recreational dance school for dancers of all ages and levels, focusing on the adult beginner. We have a Dancing with Parkinson’s Program and do much teaching and outreach in the Calgary school system.  In 2016 we opened the DJD Dance Centre, a purpose-built space with 7 studios including a 230-seat theatre in the heart of downtown, on 12th Ave and Centre St. SE.  In the past 5 years, the  DJD Dance Centre has become a hub for dance in Western Canada, not only the home for DJD but also for numerous independent dance artists,  12 resident companies, and the go to venue for festivals such as The Fluid Festival and Wordfest, as well as other performance based theatre companies and artists. Our professional company works full time, we create and perform new work annually, often with live jazz music.  We present a season annually in Calgary and have toured worldwide. 

What is it like to be in the Arts at this time?

The pandemic has shattered the performing arts sector. It will take years to rebuild and maybe never return to be what it was.  It was a very difficult year but thankfully, due to the federal government COVID relief programs and strong financial planning, DJD has been able to weather the storm.  Though we had to cancel live performances and operate in a very different way, we were able to employee our company of 7 for a season of 36 weeks full time, though with shut-downs and quarantines we had some pauses throughout the year, we were able to create some new work and we even managed to present a live drive in concert in March which felt like a real triumph after 3 postponements.  We presented some virtual work as well nationally and have established new relationships with the National Arts Centre in Ottawa and Fall for Dance North Festival in Toronto.  It was not easy, but dancing together, when we could, even masked and distanced, gave us purpose and allowed our dancers to keep working, which was a rare circumstance in terms of what most other dance companies were doing internationally. 

Our Professional Training Program (PTP) also managed to operate, often switching to zoom or one on one classes.  One unexpected blessing in the pandemic was that everyone was home and everyone wanted to work, so arranging zoom classes, lectures, discussions with international dance artists was possible in ways we never would have considered before.  The PTP season finished recently, and the 11 dancers were able to meet outside to dance together, giving them a sense of community and accomplishment to end on. 

Our community school has been mostly on-line for months, we got better at it. Teaching dance on-line is a big change, the energy and exchange in a live class is impossible to replicate, which is so much of the reason why we dance! People taking class are often dancing in limited spaces, on carpet or slippery floors, sometimes students don’t even turn their cameras on so feedback is impossible and teachers are dancing to a bunch of black boxes.  It was a chance to connect though, and we did have pretty good attendance though our revenues were  approximately 70% lower than during a “normal” time.  Recently we were able to start teaching dance classes on the roof at DJD and those have been a real hit!

Our Dancing With Parkinson’s classes were all on-line this season.  That class is a lifeline to its participants.  Not only did they have on-line classes, but a few zoom socials as well. 

Things are starting to look up.  We are cautiously optimistic about the future.  With the province now being in stage 2 and looking to stage 3, we plan  to offer live classes and summer camps starting in July. We have some independent dance artists doing residencies in the studios.  The company will come back at the end of July to work on a virtual project that got postponed several times last season that hopefully we will be able to present nationally this fall. We hope to have a live performance with audiences in the theatre next spring.  There are many unknowns and it is scary.  We hope that people have realized how much the arts mean to them since they have been gone.  We’ve all been watching a lot of screens, we hope, for the sake of the arts, when we can come back together, we will.