A Pandemic for Student Performing Arts

When Harvard University announced on March 10 that undergraduate students were to move out of their dormitories within five days due to escalating concerns surrounding the coronavirus outbreak, the student body responded with shock. While this decision had a wide range of consequences affecting all aspects of undergraduate life, I hope to shed some light on how the administration’s shifting and ambiguous policies over the past week have specifically impacted student performing arts organizations on campus.

On March 6, the Office of the Executive Vice President announced that “non-essential meetings or events of 100 people or more” would be “strongly discourage[d],” a policy that resulted in the cancellation of numerous arts events across campus. In one of the most striking cancellations, the Harvard-Radcliffe Veritones, the Harvard Fallen Angels, and the Harvard Callbacks received only two hours notice from Sanders Theater that their spring a cappella concert could not proceed due to Harvard’s new policy. Meanwhile, sporting events with far more than 100 attendees remained unaffected that same evening, a painful discrepancy detailed by one of the concert’s organizers in a piece from the Harvard Political Review.

Despite these difficulties, student arts groups were determined to continue with their productions and adapt as needed. On the afternoon of March 7, a group chat formed among the leaders of Harvard’s undergraduate performance organizations, consisting of over 150 members. We expressed our disappointment over the administration’s vague and inequitable policies while working towards solutions: how we could scale down productions, move performances outdoors, set up live streams, and restrict audience capacity to ensure no more than 100 people gathered for any single event. While the safety measures implemented for Harvard’s sports teams were largely determined by the athletics administration, student arts organizations are in charge of reserving their own spaces for rehearsals, placing more pressure on individual students to make the right decisions on behalf of their communities.

Student dance organizations faced another challenge at 10 p.m. on March 7 when the Harvard Dance Center announced that all studio reservations within both of its facilities – the Office for the Arts and the Dance Center itself – would be suspended on March 8, “due to University recommendations.” We wondered why rehearsals within these studios would be considered dangerous based on the University’s policies at that point; outside of special events, the Dance Center rarely contained more than 100 people, and the singular studio located in the Office for the Arts already limited its capacity to 20. Confusion also arose as to why these suspensions were only in place for one day; if dance studios were truly dangerous, how would a single day of closure meaningfully protect students’ health? Regardless, student dance groups worked around these constraints. Rehearsals could be rescheduled and relocated to other available (though less accommodating) studios on campus.

These studio suspensions ultimately remained. Shortly after 2 p.m. on March 9, the Harvard Dance Center announced that all studio reservations would be suspended indefinitely, and their suspensions effective immediately. Discrepancies over Harvard’s coronavirus policies also continued; just two hours following the Harvard Dance Center’s announcement, Harvard College reported that popular recreational facilities, such as the Malkin Athletic Center and Hemenway Gymnasium, would remain open and unrestricted. The inconsistent interpretations of Harvard’s policies across campus, particularly between the arts and athletics administrations, further frustrated student artists, but our organizations hoped that compromises could be reached, such as finding alternative methods to limit the number of people within studio spaces. Performing arts organizations continued to schedule rehearsals, coordinate production tasks, and develop their contingency plans.

Our hopes weakened, however, when later that day, the Theater, Dance, and Media department suspended all upcoming thesis performances. While solutions such as restricting audience capacity could have allowed these productions to comply with University policy, the department determined that these performances were to be entirely canceled due to health concerns. We could not believe the department’s actions. We were heart-broken for the seniors who had invested countless hours into the capstone works of their academic and artistic careers, and while no version of these productions were allowed to be realized, the Harvard gyms remained open and unrestricted. It was not until the following day, on March 10, when we learned that students were not permitted to return to campus after spring break, effectively destroying any possibility for group student performances on campus.

Between March 6 and March 10, student arts leaders worked tirelessly to support their organizations by complying with the vague and inequitably enforced policies presented by the administration, with no warning that these efforts would be futile within the week. I sympathize with the difficult decisions the Harvard administration faced, and I do believe sending students home was the safest possible decision, though perhaps poorly executed. Rather, the lack of transparency and unequal enforcement of unjustified policies resulted in completely unnecessary pressures being placed on hundreds of students, preceding what would in and of itself become one of the most stressful and destabilizing events in Harvard’s history. I have immense pride in the student arts organizations who have always advocated for students’ safety and the presence of the arts on campus, and I have no doubt that our communities will remain steadfast in the upcoming weeks. However, though these issues may only be a small fraction of Harvard’s current crisis, the damage they will inflict on the relationship between student artists and our administration may be irreparable.

Cassandra J. Kane ’21 is a Computer Science concentrator in Adams House.