IU senior Haley Baker never thought her senior year as a ballet student would end with her dancing in her living room, trying to not step on her cat mid-performance.

“I remember that first live class in my living room and I was not doing well because I was like this is my reality now, dancing around my cats in my living room and having no space,” Baker said.

Baker alongside 60 other Jacobs School of Music ballet majors continue to take dance classes through Zoom. The IU ballet department made the move online following IU’s March 16th decision to suspend all in-class meetings.

IU’s decision to move online was made over the universities scheduled spring break which made the last day of in-person dance classes unknown to students at the time.

“I think that last day we had in the studios if it was going to be our last day, was at least a good day to have,” Baker said.

The IU ballet faculty without a large studio setting relied on creativity and adaption to move dance instruction inside the homes of students. Associate professor and IU ballet department co-chair Sarah Wroth said that although Zoom classes are not ideal they are a necessity to maintain the talents of students.

IU’s ballet ensemble is scattered across the country dancing within a wide variety of using a wide variety of settings. Wroth says some students are lucky enough to use empty local hometown dance studios but others are turning to nonconventional dance spaces such as living rooms, kitchens, and even back yards.

“It’s a very unconventional space but a space still in which you can improve as an artist,” Wroth said.

Both students and faculty are having to deal with limitations within their new performance spaces. Haley Baker said she is experiencing difficulties with slippery wood flooring, limited amounts of dance space, and distractions from both her family and her pets.

Sarah Wroth said that even though the department has to deal with obstacles, students and staff are continuing to do what they love. Wroth said that this moment the world is experiencing requires everyone to adapt and requires her department to make sacrifices.

“We’re doing right by our fellow man or woman by staying home. The thing that is hard is that when you are an artist, you just want to be doing what you love to do, as fully as you possibly can,” Wroth said.

Seniors of the ballet program are counting their educations online with the rest of the department, but have had to sacrifice their last performance on the Musical Arts Center Stage with their spring recital being canceled.

Senior Claire Donovan said although she looked forward to all the special events before ending her time at IU, what she misses most is the opportunities available to her to prepare for life after graduation.

“The hardest part for me has been our auditions being cut short because that’s really the whole reason that we are here. We are here to get a job at the end of it,” Donovan said.

Seniors Claire Donovan and Haley Baker knew they were not the only ones in the department feeling upset by being away from campus. The two friends decided to come together to create a way to spread positivity during the pandemic.

Donovan and Baker launched the first-ever IU Ballet department alumni group on Facebook. The duo reached out to alumni on the page, as well as current students and staff within the department and asked them to send in videos of themselves dancing.

“We’ve all felt so distanced and so far apart, we wanted to do something to make people feel closer,” Baker said

The two friends ended up with over 60 videos sent their way. Baker and Donovan complied every submitted video into a singular 8-minute dance mashup set to Whitney Houston’s Iconic, “I Wanna Dance with Somebody.”

The video now with over 5,000 views shows current and former IU Ballet Theater members in unique settings, expressing their personalities through dance.

“The whole point in doing it was to bring people together and to hopefully brighten your day a little bit more,” Donovan said.

IU’s return to on-campus meetings for the upcoming fall semester remains unknown, leading the ballet department to prepare for a full semester taught through Zoom. Future plans for seniors like Haley Baker and Claire Donovan are up in the air as hiring by most professional ballet companies are on hold due to the pandemic.

Haley Baker said although this semester has not been ideal, it has made her value the opportunities she has been given as a member of the IU Ballet Theater Department.

“I am never going to take anything granted again. I just appreciate the fact that I am still in a ballet class every day,” Baker said.