March 27, 2020
Hello Polaris family, friends, and neighbors,
Our staff have all been watching the news, and sharing information as it arrives and changes.
I know that our hearts are aligned as a community, thinking about our family members and loved ones who may be struggling for their survival and for the family members, friends and loved ones who lost the struggle and are now gone.
Our hearts and thoughts are also with the amazing people on the front lines helping to defend and survive this disease (many even coming out of retirement), putting themselves at risk while caring for complete strangers and doing so no matter their political, cultural, ethnic or social point of view or lifestyle.
We are hopeful that through this devastation there can be a change in perspective. We hope people can realize just how small the world is, how interconnected we are with one another, and how we are all fragile – dependent on the ebb and flow of what each of us takes and gives. This is truly the time to tear down walls, and build bridges of respect, compassion, and inclusivity.
This is the reason we are Polaris Dance Theatre. This is our purpose, through our culture and programs we all come together to support, lift, and affect positive influence and change to and for each other. No one has a magic ball to see what the collateral devastation will be at the end of this experience, but we believe together we are strong. Together we will get through this.
As many of you already know we have started a Polaris Dance Theatre Community Facebook Page. I encourage us all to connect and share stories there – good, bad, funny or sad. This is a platform for our humanity and a place for us to stay connected.
As of last week we have started online classes for anyone, anywhere. As we continue to move forward it is our hope to add to our online class roster. We will be hosting classes through LIVE Facebook Streaming and through Zoom. To contrast this, we are working on creating videos to share past performances from our professional companies, youth companies, and school shows + programs. Additionally, because we are passionate about collaboration and inclusivity, we are working on creating a Community Resource page that will be located on our website. We are inviting other members from our dance community to share with us what they are offering during this time and will add to this page as we receive more information. We want to continue our work to bring people and ideas together by sharing our love for movement and the medicine it provides for our souls.
As we all continue to monitor the progression of this world pandemic, we want to follow the guidelines of the health professionals and avoid getting lost in the political rhetoric and jostling that unfortunately seems to be unavoidable. With that said, we will be following the recommendations of social distancing for the safety of our loved ones and those most vulnerable to this virus. Until further notice, the Polaris Dance Theatre studio will remain closed through the end of April.
Since we will remain closed through the end of April, we will be postponing our JCo/NEO Spring Performances. Other performance postponements will be announced when we have more information about the recommendations by the state.
As this virus continues to throw havoc over the world, there will not be a single one of us not affected in its wake. I am most concerned about our staff and teachers and others who deeply depend on their weekly paycheck to help feed their family and pay their bills.
We are also worried about this organization that we started 18 years ago. I hope that we will be here for you and our community after this has subsided. We know, we are not the only organization that is struggling to meet its overhead and keep its doors open. We have been in contact with many of the funding organizations both locally and nationally. They too are scrambling to help, if possible, the desperate immediate needs we all face. At this time, I would like to ask all of us to think of others! Please think about single-parent families, individuals who are providers and are now out of work, families who have members living with physical or developmental disabilities as well as organizations or 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations like us, Polaris Dance Theatre.
If you have the ability or if you work with a business or corporation that can donate funds or resources, then I ask that you help us make it through this. This is the time of year when we make much of our revenue on our many performances, rental performances of other organizations using our space, fundraisers and galas which are all crucially important for us to survive through the summer months when revenue streams are extremely low.
If you have any questions or would like more information concerning any specifics please do not hesitate to ask.
Above all else remain safe and healthy, give help and show love from a distance. We look forward to the day when we can once again embrace.
Sincerely and in good health,
Robert Guitron
April 16, 2020
Dear friends, students, and families of Polaris Dance Theatre,
During this time of uncharted territory filled with so many unknowns, we send you this email with as much information as we know to this point. Out of our deepest concern for the health and safety of our friends and families, our students ages 3 to 93 and our loved ones with underlying conditions, it is with heavy hearts that we continue our closure at Polaris Dance Theatre. It is now common knowledge that schools are closed to in-person classes until the end of the academic year by Governor Brown’s order. This reality means that Polaris Dance Theatre will be closed until mid June with hopes of continuing summer programming. Sadly, gathering events such as our JCo and NEO performances, our 8 Spring Student Performances, and our 6 show performance run of XPOSED with Polaris Company and ELa FaLa will all be cancelled. We do hope to transfer our Dance-A-Thon Fundraiser to the fall to kick off our return with a fun bang!
This is an extremely hard time for our young dancers who have spent a great deal of time preparing for these performances. A special shout out goes to our JCo seniors who are graduating this year: Lizzy Francis, Piper Grice, and Lili Pugh have been a part of the Polaris family for many years and we wish them wonderful and exciting adventures in their bright futures!
As you may have seen, we have recently rolled out an extended and even more varied multi-discipline online schedule that will continue through May 16. Dancers in our Curriculum, Career Track, Youth Company programs, Adult and All Access dancers are welcome to take any or all of these classes that are appropriate for their level. With this schedule, we hope that our students can continue to connect with their instructors and gain skills during this time.
If you are not a pre-paid tuition student, please consider a donation per class on our website with the link below. If you were on a payment plan and would like to continue your plan as a donation or make any adjustments please contact M’Liss at mliss@polarisdance.org.
We are doing our best to survive through this closure and we will need our community to get us back up and running. Please consider a donation of any amount.
We miss you! Stay healthy and keep dancing!
Robert Guitron | Co-Founder/Artistic Director | robert@polarisdance.org
Sara Anderson | Co-Founder/Program Director | sara@polarisdance.org
M’Liss Quinnly | School + JCo/NEO Director | mliss@polarisdance.org
Natalie Press | Reach Coordinator | reach@polarisdance.org
Brian McDonnell | Film + Photo + Web | brian@polarisdance.org