AMHERST – With 300 students of all ages, The Dance Company, 130 NH-101A, has survived the last year of the pandemic by creating a strategy that lives up to its mission while thinking outside the box.

Owner Tarryn Wilkerson originally opened her studio in 2010, when she was located in Heritage Place Plaza across the street.

“This is our eleventh season,” she said. “We opened this facility in September 2019 and that year was a bit of a whirlwind for us. We were approaching our tenth year and I was due with my third baby and we had a big construction project here. We had to open two weeks late because of construction and we thought that would be the biggest hiccup of the year.”

Wilkerson said that 2020 was set to be their most successful year on record, until COVID reared its ugly head.

“With our dance program, our acrobatics and our theater programs, things were looking great,” she said. “Then March came. We closed the initial two weeks and pivoted really quickly. After a week of being closed, I met with my staff and we went online immediately. I said, ‘My gut is telling me this is going to take longer than two weeks.'”

It was March 13 when Wilkerson closed and did not reopen their doors until Sept. 2020, and had to resort to having their year-end recital via Zoom.

“At the time, people had already purchased costumes,” she recalled. “We had to do something, but being in a venue or having a crowd were not options.

So, we set up two tents behind the building and hired a film crew. We basically spent an entire week, having all of the classes come one at a time for ten minute increments, and with 30 minutes in between. And we basically made a movie for our recital.”

Wilkerson held a few small camps thereafter, “socially distanced and outdoors kind of stuff.”

“Prior to closing, we were serving about 500 kids,” she said. “And when we reopened, it was slow. We had people, we had support, we had people who couldn’t wait for classes to open. And we had a lot of hesitation.”

Wilkerson estimated that she’s lost somewhere around 200 students due to the pandemic. But once they did open, those who came, came with enthusiastic hearts.

“You could quickly tell who was ready to be in,” she said, “and willing to do whatever we asked them to do. We put a lot of safety protocols in place. And when we opened last September, it worked. We had a healthy number of students, both in-person and online.”

The Dance Company invested a couple of thousand dollars during the summer, making every studio a technology hub.

“Every studio has a rolling TV cart with a mini-computer, and kids can login,” Wilkerson said. “Kids can login and we have that login for every,single class. And teachers basically dual-teach, teaching the kids in the classroom and kids at home.”

Wilkerson laughed when she was asked how the Zoom portion of teaching went once that part of the curriculum was initiated.

“Um, it’s dance,” she said. “At the end of the day, I give a lot of credit to my teachers. I currently don’t teach because I’m at home with three ‘littles.’ I run the business. And there was a lot of change and they didn’t miss a beat. They support our mission, which was how can we keep these kids dancing. And how can we keep them going?”

Training is a big part of what TDC offers, as many older students complete their work there and then take their dance training to the college level.

“It was hard,” Wilkerson said. “Zoom was tough. We’re talking about dance instruction. And I’ve been open for ten years. I had developed systems and templates. And so to say we can’t use any of that right now, it’s crazy.”

For teachers, choreography and steps for teaching had to be contained in a box which was outlined on the floor. Students in class literally danced in that box to maintain social distancing. Wilkerson said everyone made the best of it.

“We’re still taking a healthy number of precautions, and maybe sometimes, too many,” she said. “But we’ve been really lucky. We had one positive case through all of this and that case happened during Christmas vacation. So, we’ve never even had a positive case in the building.”

Wilkerson said now that everyone at the TDC knows what’s what, the staff can focus on the company’s dance recital slated for June 2021.

“We’re back to planning that, which is interesting,” she said. “We are going to do it outdoors. A couple of months ago, I was thinking about how we could do this and I knew the schools wouldn’t rent to us. It’s not even an option. So, we did a walk-through at Hampshire Hills, and found a beautiful outdoor space to have the recital.”

Through all the trials and tribulation, Wilkerson remains positive.

“We have 8,700 square feet here in the studio,” she said. “We have received great feedback from parents. They trust us with their children. That was important to us.”

Students must wear masks and social distance while dancing. Wilkerson said the kids are accustomed to it.

“It’s hard to dance in a mask,” she said. “They’re happy to be here, so they make the best of everything.”

For more information, visit thedancecompanyonline.com.

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