Feng Shuangbai Photo: Courtesy of Mou Ke

A new forum focused on the art of dance's place amid the COVID-19 pandemic kicked off at the Beijing Dance Academy (BDA) on Sunday with a number of international guests taking part through online means. 

The three-day-long BDA Dance Forum is focusing on topics related to the dance industry, one of the industries hardest hit by the novel coronavirus. 

Speakers from New York University, the Institute for Dance Arts in Austria, BDA and China's Southwest University shared their views on "how dancers express their relationship with the world through body movements during the global pandemic." 

Feng Shuangbai, chairman of the China Dancers Association, said during the opening ceremony on Sunday that as a communication and exchange platform, the BDA Dance Forum carries China's voice on how to inspire the world through dance. 

Susan Leigh Foster, professor at University of California Los Angeles, said that "dancing teaches us many things - an awareness of the space around us, an attentiveness to motion and to the qualities of movement, an ability to notice how bodies are organized in space and time... a deep love of and respect for the body. All these things can help us in our efforts to walk through the pandemic portal into a better world."