by Karolina Jiřelová (Coordinator of Music Program and Student Life)
It was around 9pm on March 11th, and I was on my way from Břevnov to Osadní to an Open Mic night after a long day of uncertainty at work. It was late and I was quite tired, which under normal circumstances would make me think twice about going all the way to Holešovice at night. But since I had not seen the students for a week because of the switch to online instruction, and I knew that this may be the last event of Spring 2020 semester, I decided to go.
Music could be heard all the way on the street outside the dorm, and upon entering the Osadní basement, I was welcomed by a truly convivial atmosphere. The basement was packed with students, staff and faculty. One performance followed another, people were dancing, singing along, clapping, and making all sorts of noise … it was just one of those nights that brings people together. In addition to all of the cheerfulness, though, there was also a palpable feeling of anxiety … a realization that the semester may come to an abrupt end. This was best summarized by the lyrics of the final improvised performance of the night: Today I’m gonna stay positive even though I’m feeling kind of negative. Those words resonated in my head for days to come after the open mic night.
Little did we know that the semester as we knew it would end in an absolute whirlwind just two days later.
Then, despite the fact that students were scattered across the world in multiple timezones, we knew that our programming had to continue and that more than ever, we need to focus on maintaining the strong sense of community we had created during the first weeks of the semester.
At first we organized a number of Zoom events: cooking sessions, workout sessions, crafting workshops… To our disappointment, these were very poorly attended (a problem shared by all other NYU study abroad sites).
Many students came forward, saying that they really appreciated our continuing efforts in offering online events, but that they did not have the time or energy to participate in person.
To reflect the fact that students were overwhelmed with classwork and over-Zoomed, we started offering more low-commitment content: videos and articles with tips for online content, tutorials that students could access on their own time, and live get-togethers with our residential staff. We found that this type of programming appealed to them much more.
Virtual tours of different parts of Prague done by our staff have become particularly popular. We decided to ask some of our students to conduct tours of their own home towns, and did they deliver! We had Instagram and video tours from Australia, Hawaii, Colorado Springs, and a tour of Alaska is yet to come.
There was one notable exception to the problem of low attendance to live events: the Zoom Open Mic on April 7th, our most successful online event to date. Not many students signed up beforehand, but 35 people joined in the end. We spent two hours watching rehearsed and spontaneous performances by students and faculty and the music truly brought us all together, just as it had during the last live session in Osadní. It was a wonderful reminder that even though we are miles apart, the NYU Prague community lives on.
Since this event was so popular, we decided to repeat it and end the semester with a bang. This time the event is called NYU Prague’s Got Talent to encourage a wider range of performance genres, and will take place on Tuesday May 12 from 8-10 pm Prague time. Everyone is welcome to join and perform – I am sure it will help us stay positive even though we may be feeling kind of negative right now.