Once a week, Amelia Heintzelman puts on two pairs of socks, two pants, and two coats and ventures out to dance rehearsals from her home in Ridgewood, Queens. She only carries a few items like her phone and keys to stop complaining and walks three and a half miles to the edge of the East River in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. She will be dancing outdoors for the next two hours, and the bundled run creates the much-needed warmth.
“I’m very warm when I get there,” she said in a telephone interview. “I try very hard to keep moving and going on.”
Heintzelman, 27, is one of a group of dancers who gather for a weekly class and rehearsal at Marsha P. Johnson State Park on the Williamsburg waterfront. The group was organized by the choreographer Phoebe Berglund, who leads a ballet barre warm-up in white jazz sneakers and a large blue parka. She took shape in August and has met regularly, even when mild days have given way to harsher weather. (For safety and style reasons, the dancers for Phoebe Berglund Dance Troupe wear matching blue satin masks embroidered with the letters PBDT.)
After theaters and studios closed in New York in the spring and many dancers could only train in their living quarters, there was an outbreak of outdoor dance in the summer and early fall, with classes and rehearsals showing up in parks and other public spaces. (Some indoor studios reopened, but with limited capacity.) As temperatures began to drop, outdoor activities subsided. But even in the dead of winter, some artists and teachers insisted on bringing people together to dance in person in the open air.
In this new landscape of outdoor dancing, ballet classes, usually held in studios with barres and sprung floors (good for jumps), have proven particularly tenacious. Across the city, amateur and professional dancers donn sneakers, masks, and many shifts to continue a familiar ritual that for many is essential to maintaining good physical and mental health. While Berglund’s class is for their troupe’s dancers – preparing for their rough rehearsals – other classes are open to the public and have attracted loyal, adventurous followers.
On Sunday afternoons in Central Park, along the way with a view of the Wollman Rink, veteran ballet teacher Kat Wildish offers an hour-long class with live music and welcomes anyone who feels moved. Dianna Warren holds an all-level class on Saturday afternoons at Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side. (She suggests getting ballet experience, but mostly “openly.”) And at Brower Park in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Katy Pyle – the founder of Ballez, a body-positive, queer-friendly ballet company and class – Pro Sneaker Ballez, teaches a 90 -minute session for advanced dancers, once a week.
On excessively cold or wet days, these classes are usually postponed or relocated to Zoom, the virtual place that has so much dance training and rehearsals from the time of the pandemic. But for the most part they held out uninterrupted, a consequence that reflects the dancers’ desire to be physically present together, not penned in their apartments or separated by screens.
“Being with other dancers is the best part of being a dancer,” said 29-year-old Anna Rogovoy, who has been taking part in Pyle’s outdoor class since January. She had attempted to take classes online in her studio apartment but found that the lack of space – coupled with a fear of disturbing her downstairs neighbors – undermined her love of ballet, a form that she has nothing to do with it has to stay calm or small.
“I don’t love ballet for doing little fussy exercises,” she said. “I do all of these things so that I can explode in space and lose control and surprise and find new limits in my dancing.” By the time she took Pro Sneaker Ballez, which culminates in a large allegro (the jumping part of the class) over a basketball court, she hadn’t jumped in five months. When she finally did, she was happy. “Even if I only made 16 changes” – small jumps in place – “I could have cried,” she said.
Pyle, who uses the pronoun, began teaching outdoors in late June after teaching Zoom classes (which they continue to offer) for months and dancing alone on an empty handball court. It was Pride month and Pyle wanted to connect with her community through dance.
“To actually take classes with other people, it makes a big difference,” Pyle said, “in relation to other people’s relationship, other people’s testimony, inspiration from other people, learning, socializing – so many things . “
As the weather got colder, Pyle measured the students’ interest in continuing to dance outdoors. “Everyone said, ‘Let’s move on! I want to go on! ‘We joked about getting snowsuits or sponsorships from REI. “(That did not happen, but Pyle” firmly believed in a base layer of wool “.)
For Wildish, too, the student excitement helped keep her outdoor classes, which she has held almost every Sunday since April, in addition to a full online class schedule. “Everything comes back to the dancers,” she said, speaking through Zoom to Sean Pallatroni, who plays for the class on a battery-powered keyboard he drives to Central Park. “You are really tough.”
Ballet on the sidewalk requires some adjustment in any weather. Wildish notes that it is more difficult to articulate your feet in sneakers (as opposed to soft ballet shoes) and jumping too hard on concrete can cause injury. James T. Lane, 43, a Broadway performer and a regular in the Central Park class, said he did fewer jumps and turns than in a studio to protect his body.
Snow adds another challenge. Lane was one of those who came to the barre – a sturdy railing over the rink – after a heavy snowfall in December. He remembers making room for his feet and starting plies that were less focused on achieving perfection than on the spirit of community movement.
“It’s the gathering, it’s the commitment, it’s the community,” he said. “You’re not going to fly over Central Park in the snow. You will not do everything you ever hoped and dreamed of doing. But you will move your body and this Sunday this Sunday you will participate in an experience that is second to none, and you will be in it together. “
Berglund is not deterred by the snow either. Growing up in Newport, Ore., A fishing village she calls “cold and gray” year round, she loves to dance with the elements.
“Ronds de Jambe in the snow? Boom. You’re just sliding, ”she said, referring to a barre exercise where the foot draws semi-circles on the floor. On a stormy day, the wind kicked the dancers into a series of chaîné turns as they lashed across an open patch of pavement.
“It makes me think about special effects on stage like fog machines, special lights, snow makers, fans,” said Berglund. “We have everything. We all have special effects out there. ”
During her Saturday class at Carl Schurz Park, Warren also appreciates the outdoors. She began teaching outdoors in June while recovering from a severe case of Covid-19 that left her weak for months. The last part of the class – a moment of gratitude known as awe – felt more “sacred” than ever as the dancers bow to a sweeping view of the East River.
“It’s like offering yourself where the water is and up in the air,” she said. “It’s full of grace and gratitude for your body, for your community, for your fellow dancers, for New York City, for the world – for just being here and dancing.”
How to take lessons
For updates on the public classes in this article, follow @ ballez.company, @wildkatnyc, and @diannawarrendance on Instagram. Send an email to ballez.company@gmail.com to join the Ballez class email list.
