ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on six interviews with freelance contemporary dance artists, based across the UK, discussing the impact of COVID-19 on their work. It explores their experiences of dealing with and working through the pandemic, their concerns, and responses. The paper highlights the immediate effects of the pandemic on the already unstable conditions of work and the creative processes of contemporary dance making and performance, including the physical consequences on and vulnerabilities of freelance artists’ bodies. The chapter concludes that the pandemic exacerbated dancers and choreographers’ precarious position as professionals and creatives. The COVID-19 crisis destabilised further their conditions of work and income and complicated creative possibilities through confinement and reduction of physical engagement. Even though online work became the primary form of dance production during the various periods of lockdown since March 2020, this had serious consequences for the physical and creative aspects of performance, generating questions about the future of dance as well as the future of its practitioners.
