This essay documents and analyzes dance practices during the COVID-19 lockdown in Moscow and Saint Petersburg. The aim of the paper is to investigate corporeality in lockdown through dancers’ own accounts. The essay uses the concept of ‘thinking through the body’ to conceptualize the experiences described in the interviews by performers and dance practitioners, including both professional and non-professional dancers.
The Waterstones Russian Book Club (WRBC) is the largest Russophone book club in Britain. In the pre-pandemic era, the book club members used to meet once per month at the Waterstones Piccadilly to discuss contemporary Russian literature, but following the announcement of the lockdown in Britain in March 2020, they decided to go online for the first time. This article explores the transition of the WRBC from an offline to an online setting, as well as its effect on the mission of the book club and the members’ reading identities.