Dear Makaroff School of Ballet students, and parents and guardians of our dancers,
Following the AASD’s announcement that they will suspend all in-person learning options beginning on Tuesday, March 17, we have made the difficult decision to follow their lead and put in-person dance instruction on hold until CDC guidelines and local practices suggest it is safe for us to remove the social distancing procedures being put in place to help contain and control COVID-19.
We plan to resume classes when the school district issues guidelines suggesting that is safe and plan to mirror the state’s current school recommendations by reopening on April 6. One week of the closure will be the preplanned ballet school spring break, and we will plan on adding two weeks to the term to make up for the missed instructional time.
As artists, we provide people with the joy, hope, and beauty they need in times like these, so dancers, dance in your homes and with your families. Share your talents in ways that make you happy, that help you heal, and that add moments of happiness to the lives of those around you. It breaks my heart to not be able to maintain the space and community that means so much to me as your teacher and a fellow artist, but I do so with the utmost respect for what you’ve accomplished already—and for what I know we will achieve together as we return to the studio, reinvigorated and even more aware of why our work matters.
These are difficult times for us all. I hope the adversity will give us an opportunity to take stock of what matters most to us—and also to think about how we can show up off stage for each other so that, when the crisis recedes, we will return to a community where the arts remain vitally, excitingly alive and well.
Sincerely,
Jeanette Makaroff, Owner, Makaroff School of Ballet