2021 Festival of Dance was no super-spreader
POSSIBLY only three of the hundreds of dancers, parents and organisers involved with the Guernsey Festival of Dance in January tested positive for Covid-19, despite the event being labelled as something of a ‘super-spreader’ of the virus.
Young dancers finally had a chance to show off the results of months of hard work when the festival held its last day yesterday, some four months later than planned.
The event was originally due to run over five days in January, but it was on the fifth day that committee member Ann Good said she realised something was wrong.
She had picked up the visiting adjudicator and tried to get into Beau Sejour car park. ‘They were stopping you at the gate and you couldn’t get in.’
That was the first day of the island’s second lockdown and luckily many people had already been made aware of the event’s cancellation.
‘It was really disappointing not to be able to finish it,’ said Mrs Good.
What was even more disappointing was the way in which the event’s cancellation was publicised afterwards, she said.
‘At the end of the day a lot of people were tested but I think there were only three cases.
‘When we were blamed and it was said that it was our fault, it was a bit rubbish really.’
After a committee meeting later on it was decided that the event’s final day would be rescheduled.
But because of the problems with parking at Beau Sejour due to the Covid-19 vaccinations, it was booked to take place at the Princess Royal Centre for the Performing Arts.
While that ensured no problems for the cars, a few classes did have to be dropped.
‘The under-13s [group class] would have been a logistical nightmare,’ said Mrs Good. ‘The stage isn’t big enough to take anything like that.’
That one class involved more than 200 dancers in groups of about 20 each, and so, along with similar group classes for other ages, it had to go.
The largest groups of dancers involved yesterday were trios and quartets.
But the lack of the big groups did not spoil the day too much, and half way through Mrs Good was delighted at how things were going, complete with the remote adjudication.
‘This morning has been fantastic. Our adjudicator Jill Redford wanted to finish the day so we’re doing it over Zoom from the UK. That means you get continuity because she has seen the standard and gives the same kind of marks.’
