With most of the world under quarantine and practicing social distancing, students are looking for ways to fill their newfound free time at home. While many are picking up a new book, committing themselves to learning a new skill or spending hours playing the new Animal Crossing game, Ailey School student MaryBeth Rodgers, Fordham College at Lincoln Center (FCLC) ’21, has set up “Camp Quarantine” on Instagram. 

Camp Quarantine is a program Rodgers created to highlight resources for dancers and artists alike that they can access from their homes while they are out of school. Every day, three times a day, Rodgers will post a flyer she designed on her story, and the entire program is saved as a highlight on her account page.

The concept for Camp Quarantine began at school when Rodgers and some of her fellow dance majors, played around with the idea of trying to teach one another things like their favorite dances and exercises during their time quarantined. “At that point, I don’t think any of us thought that we would be separated,” Rodgers said. “We wanted a resource to keep up that energy from dancing while we patiently wait for quarantine to end.” 

While Rodgers was the only one to keep the idea going once the group was separated, she said her friends have sent her different pages to include. She’s even highlighted some of her classmates like Jaryd Farcon, FCLC ’20, who taught a free online ballroom dance class on March 20.

In addition to the pages her friends have suggested, Rodgers said it was not hard to find content for her project on Instagram because she was already following many dance organizations. From there, she also reached out to many of her favorite dance companies to see how they are observing quarantine. She found many offering free online classes or free performances to stream. Since Rodgers is a dance major, most of her posts are different classes or activities to keep her followers busy and boost their energy, like dance exercises and yoga classes.  

She also likes to highlight accounts that she believes will simply cheer her followers up. She plans out all the posts days in advance and has featured pages like @ontheboards, which offers streams of dance performances; @goodnews_movement, which highlights lighthearted stories from around the world and @jivayoga, which has offered free yoga classes over Zoom.

Rodgers plans to keep Camp Quarantine going for another two to three weeks, and then she wants to try something different. “After the program, I want to look at engagement differently, and instead highlight some of the people who followed along for Camp Quarantine,” Rodgers said.

“I think it’s super important in this time of uncertainty for dancers and non-dancers alike to express themselves and heal in their own ways,” Rodgers said. “We’re dancing alone, together.”