Val O'Connor - Line Dancing Through Lockdown

  • Val O'Connor - Line Dancing Through Lockdown

Mid way through March, the line dance industry as we know it changed over night.  Classes, events and social evenings were cancelled and in an instant the dance world stopped moving, wiping out income for many teachers.   This is the story of line dance teacher, Val O'connor and how she has approached the lockdown situation.

Val O'connor - Line Dance Instructor - View ELD profile

Like many of us, on 17th March Val, and her teaching partner Sarah Massey Mcann, made the difficult decision to suspend all classes with immediate effect.  After informing her class by text, phone, email and Facebook to let them know, Val was approached by some of her class to ask if she would consider recapping some of the dances she had choreographed in the past.  Val decided that the best way for her to do this was to record the dances as if she was teaching them in class, she borrowed a camcorder from her son (adhering to social distancing rules!) and taught herself how to use it.  For Val and her class the best way to present these teaches was to upload the pre-recorded videos to her newly created Line Dance Revivals Group, which can be found on Facebook at the link below:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/166995680998097/

This meant that all her dancers and the group members, of which there are now over 100! could access the videos as and when they had time to follow them.  Val may have set this group up but she truly feels it belongs to the dancers in the group, as it’s them who request the teaches she uploads.

Once Val had decided she was going to upload videos, the next step was to decide where to actually record them.  Her kitchen/dining room is fully laminated making it the perfect dance space for her, and as an added bonus her music system was already set up there too.  She found that placing her camcorder on a step ladder gave it the height and scope required to record a good video.

Val keeps her videos as true to a normal class as possible, any mistakes made stay in! If she was in class there is no editing software to remove them!  She aims to keep them as fun as possible and teaches as if she can actually see her class.  Given the great response she’s had from the dancers in her group, this is exactly the right approach to have taken.  As Val usually teaches a range of classes for different levels, she is also uploading dances of varying difficulty too, she is currently aiming to upload 2 videos for beginner/improver and intermediate every 2-3 days.

Knowing that her dancers are enjoying the videos she is uploading and that they appreciate the effort that goes into making them, makes it all worth while for Val.  Now that she had cracked uploading video content, (please look at the O.C.D plan on the ELD website for step by step instruction on how to do this (https://www.everythinglinedance.com/courses/ ) Val wanted to start attempting video chats with her dancers so that they could all start to enjoy the social side of dancing again. I think this is something we can all agree we are all missing terribly.  She followed the instructional videos on the ELD website on how to set up a Zoom chat ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms3Uijbot_U ) and talked her dancers through joining, they held their 1st group chat on Easter Sunday and have since had a wine and cheese evening too, which in Val’s own words was hilarious!!

For her dancers (and we all do it!) who keep loosing which wall they should be on when following the video, she has suggested using paper notes with the ‘o’clock’ on them so that they can stick them to the wall and it’s an easy visual reminder of which way they should be facing!  However, the benefits of Val’s Line Dance Revivals Group extend far beyond ensuring she retains her dancers while classes are suspended, she is also keeping not only herself, but others, active.  Her group is also a huge source of support for her dancers, and any others, who may be struggling emotionally.   Whilst we can’t be sure what the future holds, Val is very pleased that she has learnt to use technology she hadn’t used before and hopes her Line Dance Revivals Group continues long after regular classes resume and can remain a platform for her to present any new choreography she does in the future. 


To view Val's profile page on ELD click here


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