Back in 2019 ...  on Thursday evenings I lead a dance session with a friend at the Camphill Community near Belfast,  a residential home for adults with learning difficulties. There would be 30-40 participants, including some staff, each enjoying dance in their own way.

We get to know the names of those residents who are able to tell us,  many are not able to speak. 
 
One young man, a tall red-head, comes to every session, he is not able to tell me his name. In the circle-dances he holds my hand too tight, and sometimes he will take his other hand, reach across and pinch the skin on the top of my hand. When he does this, I look at him and wonder ... “what he is trying to say?”

I learn to anticipate this and brush his hand away, or distract him in dance. 
 
Last night, we were in the circle, he was beside me, we were holding hands, he didn’t try to pinch me, he moved in a different way, he lifted my hand towards his face, it felt wrong to pull away.

​I had no idea what his next action might be, and wondered to myself ... is he going to try and bite me ... I was glad I had not pulled away as I watched him place the gentlest of kisses on the very spot he usually pinches.

At that moment I said to myself ... “he knows my pain”. 

Just 4 days previous I had to take that terrible decision to put my dog Sidiki to sleep. He was deteriorating quickly from inoperable tumours which had only been discovered two days previously. He had been my companion for 11 years. I was heart-broken. The following day I heard the tragic news that a dear friend, Peter Woods, has also died. 
 
Peter’s funeral service was beautiful. He was deeply involved in the Belfast music and dance scene; it was he who asked me to take over the dance session at Camphill – introducing me to my red-haired friend. The pastor gave a wonderful tribute and at the end of the service we all sang ... 
 
   "Dance, dance, wherever you may be , I am the Lord of the Dance, said He 
   And I’ll lead you all, wherever you may be, and I’ll lead you all in the Dance, said He"
 
Peter was a great animal lover and as reflect on a very difficult time, I take comfort in imagining Peter and Sidiki taking off on a whole new adventure together.
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I think of music as my oldest, most dearest friend, helping me cope through troubled times - whisking me away to another place, to heal and cope with what is going on around me.  In January 2019 I was drawn to the piano once more, to a melody written by Bernard Loffet RIP - Valse à Mary - its sadness mirrored my own life at that time and I wrote this arrangement. ... 

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"THIS has really gone better than I was expecting" admits Irish dancing teacher Annette Collins of how she's managed to keep on sharing her dance expertise via online means during lockdown.

Having become a self-employed dance and music teacher back in 2017, former administrator Annette (55) from Lurgan is one of the many people in our creative and performing arts sector whose livelihood has been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Annette shows off her skills in the garden. Picture by Hugh Russell
 

The Co Armagh woman teaches piano, whistle, concertina, traditional set dancing and solo step dancing. She has a particular passion for the latter, a percussive discipline related to sean nós dancing where choreographed steps are danced close to the floor, making it ideal for dancers of all ages – indeed, her eldest pupil is in her 90s.

When Annette's regular “Step with Annette” classes were cancelled when lockdown began back in March, she decided to try something completely new by setting up weekly solo step dancing classes conducted via Zoom: thus, “Zoom with Annette” was born.

"A couple of people had actually asked me about doing it before, but I just didn't have the time to try and figure out the technology involved," she tells me of her usual busy schedule, which involves teaching weekly classes at Lurgan's Town Hall, Belfast's Skainos Centre and at the Camphill Community for adults with learning difficulties in Seapatrick, work with a Parkinson’s Group as well as occasional weekend workshops and open floor events.

"So this [lockdown] kind of gave me the time to explore it and get through the learning curve."
Annette soon put together a 30 minute introductory solo step dancing tutorial video and uploaded it to YouTube. Although the video was free, she included a Paypal link for voluntary donations – it promptly generated £200.

"I was shocked," admits Annette. "That probably spurred me on to set up the Zoom classes."
However, it's one thing to teach jigs, reels, hornpipes and slip-jigs on a face-to-face basis in a space designed for such encounters – taking things online from home while attempting to keep her faithful dog Buddy from joining in added a few unfamiliar steps to the process, as Annette soon discovered.
"I had many dry runs and people from my dance classes and the dance scene were very helpful with that," she explains.

"Probably the hardest thing was just finding a suitable space, but luckily enough the house has wooden floors and I took down a wall last year so that the whole ground floor is open plan. So I was able to rearrange the furniture and now I have almost a little dance studio which I leave set up."
"Lighting and audio was a bit difficult, because while Zoom is fine for just chatting, suddenly I needed to talk and play music too."