"All you can do is plan for the future and know that that may change.”

Dani Tirrell, a black, queer, gender-nonconforming movement-based artist, choreographer and educator, has had in-session dance classes at Northwest Tap Connection and the University of Washington canceled completely. Photographed at Kubota Garden in Seattle on April 2, 2020 in Seattle, Washington.

Though the University of Washington class was a week away from finals, the choice was made to cancel due to the difficult logistics of teaching dance online and concerns about the technological challenges some students would face in completing work. “That was a nice chunk of income for me,” said Tirrell of the classes. But Tirrell is more concerned for the financial and mental well-being of other individual artists. “What does this do for people’s mental health, especially artists?” Tirrell asked. And while there are many artist funds emerging, Tirrell says, thousands of people are applying at the same time. “Your likelihood of getting anything in the first, second, third round is slim.”

As a programming curator at Central District Forum for Arts & Ideas, Tirrell is figuring out how to shift programs online for the time being, without giving too much work away for free. “We’re thinking about longevity,” Tirrell said. For now, Tirrell is doing a physically distant interview series on Instagram live every Saturday with local artists. “We want to make sure the voices of the artists are at the center of what we do.”

“There’s no magical way to deal with (this situation). In the immediate, we can’t change anything. All you can do is plan for the future and know that that may change.”

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