On November 23, 2020, without prior notification or additional guidelines, the provincial government immediately shut down dance studios, martial arts, and yoga across the province. 
Studios had been doing more than the recommended guidelines since we opened our season and there has not been one instance or outbreak related to the dance community in the north. Our studios have followed all the restrictions, additional cleaning, social distancing, and had instructors wearing masks. Our artistic sport naturally requires distancing and often has no more than 2-3 dancers traveling across the floor at any given time. 
These same studios all closed on a recommendation in the spring, which caused our students to lose valuable time in their dance education and, for some that were graduating, they lost their final season. Many of these studios operate on a month to month tuition scale, these are small and locally owned businesses that are at risk to lose everything. Studios in the lower mainland have been told they can have private and duo lessons with 3 people (up to 2 students and 1 teacher), yet the northern studios have been told that we need to stay completely closed until the new guidelines are released.

New guidelines were originally supposed to be released on November 30. The most updated briefing from Dr Henry now states it won’t be until December 4th at the earliest. 

Hockey, basketball, volleyball, and other contact/semi-contact sports are still allowed to run. They have been deemed as necessary for student's mental health and physical wellbeing. Dance should be as well. Please sign the petition, contact our MLAs, and join your local studios in their fight to get back to our kids.