Dance Garage

An eery quiet has taken root in California. Since the lockdown, the streets have been empty, the air thick with the weight of the unknown. We pass each other by, a look of uneasiness takes our features even when we don’t mean it to. Early evening on Mondays on a small suburban street, a strange sound echoes from a garage. The doors are brown, windows clouded with dust and aged sun streaks. The street is quiet, stunned by the mid-April heat. A stiff breeze graces the palm trees across the asphalt. But one sound causes a break in the suppressing silence, and that’s the sound of Eden Norby’s tap dance practice in his garage.

Because of the Coronavirus, not only has his schooling moved online to the Zoom platform, but so have his dance classes. The house he lives in only has room in the garage for him to attend lessons in. The floors are worn concrete, marked in time with tire tracks and oil stains. In addition to his tap lessons, Eden also attends two ballet ballet classes, lyrical, jazz and a pilates classes. 

“The easiest I’d say is probably tap even though it makes a lot of noise. You have enough room for everything and everything else is super hard because you need a lot of room. Lyrical tricks are weird and a lot of us can’t do the tricks because we’re in our living room or I’m on concrete and I can’t do a lot of stuff or they want you to turn and you have to move your couch.” 

Adapting to the migration online has been difficult for Eden. At 15 years old and as a freshman, he’s still learning how to adapt to the high school environment. Just as he was getting comfortable, everything shut down, and he found himself lost.

“I miss seeing my friends. I miss having a teacher breathing down my back, surprisingly, because they kind of help plan your schedule. I miss having a completely set schedule for school and not as much online work and I miss bio labs.” 

None of his teachers have reoccurring Zoom lectures according to Eden. Most of the learning depends on the student taking responsibility into their own hands and creating their own schedules. However, the lack of separation of school from home life makes it incredibly difficult to stay focused and motivated. Eden typically works in his room, which he decorated himself at the beginning of the lockdown. His once green walls are covered in dark gray paint and plastered with homemade horror movie posters. He also painted his white closet doors himself, covering them in colorful triangle patterns and his rendition of The Scream, among wild thoughts from his imagination. A typical day for him consists of waking up sometime past 11:00, a walk downstairs to pick up food, disappearing into his room again until it is time for dance class and then staying up past midnight making art or playing online.

“You’re cooped up inside all day and it’s keeping everyone from school and normal life, but it’s kind of nice to be able to have some time alone and to be with your own thoughts and recuperate from the school year. But it’s also kind of sad because you don’t get to see your friends and such.” 

As taxing as it’s been on him, Eden still manages to keep going everyday. He is strong and continues to try his best through these trying times. 

Neighbors have jokingly asked him to open up the garage during his dance practices, hoping to enjoy his talents over a glass of wine and cheap lawn chairs. Eden keeps his sessions relatively private though, asking his family to stay out. Around the same time every day, his mom and dad move the cars and Eden prepares to get innovative. His dad’s tired wooden work bench serves as his bar. The cold concrete is his stage. His only audience, beyond the electronic glow of his fellow classmates and instructors, are the long-legged spiders in the corners of the garage.