The Coronavirus has impacted so many people since the outbreak in early 2020. The media mainly covered the rapidly rising cases and deaths, and followed the virus all the way from China, to the U.S.  They mainly focused on the things that the majority of people seem to care about. Sports, television, the economy and many other things. Performing arts didn’t, and still doesn’t seem to get much media attention, although it’s the backbone of so many forms of entertainment. 

Many nationwide productions like movie and show filmings, fashion and beauty line debuts, national and world tours, and broadway, had to be completely shut down. Although it is devastating that big plans for this year either had to be pushed back or canceled all together, we need to look behind the scenes at all of this, and how it affects individuals. For all of the designers, directors, actors, dancers, producers, performers, musicians and fans, it definitely affects them, but all in different ways. The production teams are losing out on many hours of pay, while the performing teams are missing out on pay as well as experience. It’s estimated that there will be over 2 million jobs lost  and over $70 billion monthly earnings lost. This includes careers in  visual arts, music, theater, and dance. Not to mention the smaller musicals, plays, dance performances and concerts that school systems all over the world have been putting on, and relying on as a source of fundraising. 

I’m a dancer at a small studio, and I talked to my ballet teacher about her opinion on the whole thing. She went into detail telling me how she nearly had to close down the studio, and she even had to go into her personal savings to keep the studio. We recently went back to dance, and she said that if there had been even one more week without monthly income, she would have to unfortunately close the doors to a studio that so many young and older dancers rely on. It would have been so horrible, but we have to think about the studios and small businesses across the nation, that unfortunately, had to close their doors, with no foreseeable future of reopening. 

I also talked to one of my closest friends, who is a professional performer in our community. He says; ¨As someone who loves to perform, this pandemic has definitely taken a toll on me. My schedule went from full because I was performing at least once a month, to literally nothing at all. It was a shock, to say the least. Being so used to a tight schedule, I forgot how to use free time.  The other thing is that it’s my passion, so it really bummed me out. It was already hard having nothing to do, but to have my favorite thing taken away isn’t exactly fun.¨

So, clearly everyone is getting affected differently, but everyone who is missing out on their favorite pastime can all relate to each other one way or another.