Like shows on Broadway, live performances by Bronx Community College (BCC)’s Theatre Workshop have been shut down by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, its students found another outlet for their talents in Essential Bronx COVID Stories Part 1, a powerful short film written, performed and shot by the students themselves.
Chronicled over the past year, these unique stories are now available to watch, and the public can get to know the lives of the students affected by the pandemic and experience them recounting their stories of struggle.
Dr. John Socas is director of the workshop at BCC. “The students feel passionately about performance, but were unable to perform,” he said. “They wanted to share their frustrations and have their voices heard. We wanted to find a way to get their stories out there.”
To create the script, the students wrote to such themes as “emotions” and “an unexpected quarantine gift.” They then recorded themselves on their cell phones, relating their stories and experiences from various isolated locations around the city. Their performances were then edited and aggregated into the final film by their classmate, Gerson Legend. The entire process was overseen by Socas and Dr. Carmen Myers, an artist and educator committed to developing applied theatre practice as a basis for community empowerment.
The result is a very Bronx-focused tale of surviving the worst of the outbreak in the worst-hit borough. Ayana, one of the students, talks of the shock of suddenly losing her job “until further notice,” while José, another student, relays his fear of when his mother, the sole head of the family, told her children she had come down with COVID-19.
“The most difficult part was that she couldn’t be around us,” José recalls. Together, these dozen stories depict the pain of communities that have borne the brunt of a disaster, unseen by much of the world. Socas added, “These students keep on keeping on while everyone else is safe in their houses.”
With so many small businesses, like restaurants and bars, closed amid much of the pandemic, huge numbers of students lost their regular part-time jobs, and along with them, a much-needed source of income. Norwood News previously reported that on Oct. 16, actions were taken by the State to reduce food insecurity among community college students, including the expansion of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) eligibility to up to nearly 75,000 low-income college students enrolled in career or technical education course work, including about 42,000 students across the CUNY network, of which BCC is a member college.
BCC’s Food Pantry carried on throughout the crisis, with the college announcing on social media that it had made some slight changes to how food distributions would take place on campus, with distributions being conducted by appointment only at a certain point to avoid contagion. Food pantries were also in place at Lehman College to address food insecurity among students, as reported by Norwood News.
Nearly 100 percent of BCC’s student body hail from minorities, people whose health, as we now know, was deeply impacted by the pandemic. Over one half, 55 percent, of the student body are first-generation students and the majority are from The Bronx.
A sequel to the first film is already in the works. Socas promises “The Essential Bronx COVID Stories Part 2” will be something as hopeful as people are starting to feel. “Even though we’re locked down, our students’ hearts and passionate spirits and creative energy are not locked down,” he said.
Bronx Community College of the City University of New York offers more than 40 academic programs that prepare students for careers and to continue their education at four-year colleges. Located on a 45-acre tree-lined campus, BCC is home to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans, the country’s first hall of fame.
The College provides its approximately 10,000 students with quality academic programs, outstanding faculty, and flexible class schedules. BCC is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), with students representing approximately 100 countries. In October 2012, the BCC campus was declared a National Historic Landmark, becoming the country’s first community college campus to receive such a designation. For more information about Bronx Community College, visit www.bcc.cuny.edu
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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