We got rhythm: COVID-19 rhythms: negotiating A/liveness of 3 Performance makers in Singapore schools

Arrhythmia suggests a threat to life. In the context of an ongoing pandemic, arts educators are learning to negotiate uncertainties, perhaps measured by irregular heartbeats. This paper examines the phenomenology of liveness among three performance makers in Singapore, two of whom are freelance Bharatanatyam and Jazz instructors working across several schools, while one is a full-time Drama teacher in an independent school. Instead of investigating liveness through mediatised performances (Auslander, 1997) or presence as ephemeral bodies (Phelan, 1993), both of which foreground the ontology of performance and its importance of the medium in relation to an audience, this essay invites the reader to feel the precarity of a/liveness of artists and arts educators through the lens of labour and livelihood as they react to disruptions to their curriculum. On the performative front, the case studies will include a virtual assembly talk by musicians, a virtual dance performance for a temple ceremony, and a drama festival in the style of a live variety show mixed with virtual performances. By tracing the lived experiences of these educators induced by the disruption of COVID-19, this paper seeks to make visible the invisible emotional terrain and to argue for a phenomenological reframing of liveness.