There is no doubt that life was hard during the COVID pandemic, however, dancers found a way to create work and keep moving. Notable and emerging artists continued to produce work during the lockdown phase, often dealing with the topics of isolation and loneliness, but also optimism and hope. But how might the creative process be affected if the same work were created during and after the height of the COVID pandemic?

“Fill me in on your new dancers,” I asked executive director of Giordano Dance Chicago Michael McStraw in a recent phone interview. Little did I know my innocent query would be met by a heartwarming story of peril, determination, survival, and, ultimately transformation during the COVID Pandemic.

“GDC almost didn’t make it through the Pandemic. The loss of revenue was catastrophic,” McStraw said. Thanks to a federal emergency grant they were able to re-hire and bring back all the dancers.

For hundreds of years the story of Ram, the seventh avatar of the Hindu god Vishnu, has remained a family favorite. Ram’s journey as told in the text of the Ramayana is the embodiment of chivalry and virtue. For centuries, entire communities would gather to witness the story of Ram told through the expressive art form of Bharatanatyam dance.

In the past, this performance could last 14 days, with a different story being told each day. However, if you don’t have 2 weeks of free time at your disposal, then you’re in luck.

The sun was setting as I squinted at an address on the side of a residential stone house. My only other direction was “in the garage”; So, I crept around the side of the building and encountered a sign on a closed chain link gate, which spelled out in big, bold letters:

“MAKE DO”

Past the gate wound a path that led to a small garage. Dim lights shown in the windows. Before I could touch the handle, the door swung open. They had been expecting me.

Faraway figures dancing through a window, and the melody of vibrating strings from a sitar were my guide down a stone path to the entrance of Indian Boundary Park. I passed a giant wooden jungle gym and small, stone hovels and came across an old bear habitat from a decommissioned Zoo, rehabilitated into the Nature Play Center. There was no doubt I had found “Tend,” an integrative performance experience produced by Khecari, conceived and orchestrated by Artistic and Executive Director Julia Rae Antonick.