For many remaining active in the middle of a semester full of online classes and social distancing has become quite the struggle. To help with this, Wayne State University senior Miles Rueben has given people the chance to remain active with him in the form of dance.
Rueben said he began to teach the classes because of how much he missed dancing.
“I just missed dancing and everybody kind of knew I just danced at parties and stuff on campus,” said Rueben. “So, I decided to have them on campus as official classes just to have fun and just to teach people some choreography, because I haven’t done it in a while.”
The classes are free and are held both in-person and streamed on Reuben’s Instagram page. He began hosting the classes on campus in early August of 2019 and has continued them through the pandemic with COVID safety in mind.
The classes remain safe primarily because of the space the classes are held in, said Rueben.
“So, the studio I go to is Exhibited 8 Studios, which is a black-owned dance studio based in Detroit and they have made the preparations,” Rueben said.
The precautions laid out by the studio include a limit to how many dancers can be in the studio and constant mask-wearing.
“You can’t have a certain amount of people in the studio at a certain time, because then the spacing gets weird, and the spacing is really hard,” Rueben said. “And masks are required to dance, so you have to wear a mask continuously,”
Reuben said this is the perfect setup for the class.
“It works perfectly, and I don’t necessarily have to have set up the restrictions myself, “Rueben said. “Because I do the classes for free, all the studio and I have to do is make sure not a lot of people come into the studio and take up space, which usually doesn’t happen because I also live stream.”
WSU student and Exhibited 8 Studios dance instructor Sydney Nash said she regularly attends the classes and believes the studio space is meant to make students feel comfortable.
Reuben does an excellent job of allowing each to explain who they are and their dance background which helps with comfortability, Nash said.
“When you do dance in front of people for the first time you want to be comfortable around the people you’re dancing with, and we provide that environment,” Nash said.
Digital artist Shane Miller has streamed many of the classes because he lives in St. Louis. He says he started following because of all of Reuben’s extensive work as a Black creative in Detroit.
“I feel like he really does put his all in the stuff he cares about, and I feel like it shows,” Miller said. “Even if there’s only two of us up and ready to go he’s always on it like there’s a full classroom, just ready to start, his work ethic and passion just radiates.”
For those interested in attending Reuben’s classes, they are held semi-regularly and are announced in posts on Reuben’s Instagram page.
“At first, it [the class] used to be every other month when the pandemic wasn’t happening,” Reuben said. “But now because of the pandemic, it being my senior year, and because everybody’s kind of everywhere, I try to do it when I can.”
Cameron Sanders| Journalist 