The Orange County Music and Dance school has demonstrated that despite the COVID-19 pandemic – the show must go on. 

OC Music and Dance was founded in 2017 by Orange County businessman and entrepreneur Charlie Zhang, who is also the founder of the well-known Pick Up Stix franchise. 

While Students in Orange County, and across the nation, have needed to rely on distance learning for the majority of 2020, Douglas K. Freeman, Executive Chair of the OC Music and Dance, said although the pandemic has shifted the school’s models for education to a more digital approach, the focus is still set on delivering OC Music and Dance’s three core philosophies – proficiency, literacy and versatility – in all styles of music and dance. 

“Only a small percentage of the kids who ever study music end up as professionals, but the other 98 percent of the kids love music and they appreciate it, and they support it, they attend it and they contribute to it,” Freeman explained. “So when you give kids this range of experience, they can understand music and play music. We give kids a well-rounded experience, and that well-rounded experience makes for some fantastic artists.”

Through online resources and extreme attention to detail from instructors, OC Music and Dance has created an environment for students to continue pursuing their artistic interests and passions – and it’s not all virtual. 

In an interview with Irvine Weekly, Freeman discussed the creative ways the OC Music and Dance has strategized safeguards, which include making their own sanitizers, along with the installation of HEPA filters against the pandemic to allow young dancers and musicians to continue mastering their crafts, regardless of the limitations brought on by COVID-19.

“Understand that COVID-19 has an impact on every single person, whether they’re ill because of it or not. Everybody knows somebody who has been affected by it – jobs, travel, everything,” Freeman explained. “We knew in March, when we closed, that when we came out the other side of COVID, we were going to be different – as was the community. We actually worked off a white paper I wrote, called “Recovery, Reopened, Reimagined.”  

Freeman, who was recognized as one of the 500 Most Influential People in Orange County in 2016, added that OC Music and Dance serves the community in numerous ways. 

“Pre COVID-19 – end of 2019 to early 2020 – we had over 450 kids and 45 teachers. We taught music in every instrument, we had dance programs in virtually every style – Asian dance, Indian dance, and of course western styles from ballet to hip hop, jazz to modern and contemporary – we grew pretty fast,” he said. “Our philosophy as a school is actually quite different from the philosophy of most music or dance schools, and that’s important to be recognized because we’re not here to win lots of competitions. Our kids are going to win competitions, and they have, but that’s not our goal.”

In addition to preparing students for the next level of performing, OC Music and Dance is also working to help socialize the youngest sets of students – toddlers – which is unique considering a pandemic. Speaking on the importance of socialization, Freeman pointed out that most of these young families have spent the majority of their lives in quarantine, due to the pandemic. 

“We’ve created an early childhood music program for toddlers – that young. And we put 3, 4, 5 kids on the floor in our dance studio, very spread apart, with Mom, and we’re giving them rhythm, and giving them singing and cooing and pounding on a little stick and we’re giving them socialization and creativity,” Freeman explained.

In some cases, Freeman added, these socialization classes are the first social experiences for some of these families.

The pandemic has undoubtedly created turmoil in every aspect of life, and for aspiring dance and music majors looking to move on to college, they must do so digitally, and away from the comfort of playing with an ensemble. 

When asked what the forecast was like for music students looking to get into college, Freeman said that colleges are now requiring music majors to send in audition tapes, which is difficult for students to accomplish on their own. 

“They’re panicking,” Freeman said bluntly. “What’s happened is that to get into a conservatory, by the end of November you must have turned in your auditions. We’ve been preparing the kids, two to three days a week recording. The other thing that’s missing in the schools is they can’t play with anyone — we can. I can put 10 kids, six feet apart, with screens and masks – and we jam.” 

Most of all, Freeman added, thanks to the great efforts put forth by the staff and the willingness of the students to learn outside of their comfort zones, the opportunities for young dancers and musicians is not lost due to the pandemic. 

“They haven’t lost the opportunity to perform, it’s just a little different. And sometimes they can have 5,000 people watching them, because we can broadcast, and the world can see it,” Freeman said. 

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