text: Saschie MacLean-Magbanua dreamed people would miss her studio so much that when she reopened in June they'd rush back, ready to dance away the pandemic stress. That isn't exactly what happened. Her first month back at Formation, the ultra-cool white-and-concrete space she'd opened in Vancouver's Mount Pleasant neighbourhood at the end of 2019, was quiet. In part, that was because she'd reduced her 230-square-metre studio capacity by 65 per cent to help keep people safe. Instead of the thirty-five classes a week she ran in March—drawing up to a total of eight hundred people—she was now holding between fifteen and seventeen hours of class. But MacLean-Magbanua knew it wasn't the only reason her once-bustling studio felt subdued. Many people didn't yet feel comfortable sweating and shouting next to others, no matter the social distance. Some didn't feel comfortable leaving their house. Others likely could no longer afford the class. Or maybe they didn't know Formation had reopened. It didn't help that MacLean-Magbanua had chosen her location to draw in commuters and office folk, a move that felt like a score when there were still offices open for people to go to. Now the city was eerily empty, foot traffic defeated to zilch. She'd seen her class numbers rise each week, but still wondered if the trickle would be enough to sustain the business she'd poured her heart into.
  
  MacLean-Magbanua hadn't always planned to open a dance studio; she isn't a dancer by training. But in 2014, her seventeen-year-old younger sister was in a fatal car accident, mere weeks before MacLean-Magbanua's twenty-sixth birthday. Shocked with grief, she retreated into herself. She spent weeks on her couch, watching-but-not-watching endless seasons of Grey's Anatomy, eating barbecue chips, quiet and still. During this time, MacLean-Magbanua was also seeing a grief counsellor who, one day, suggested she try moving her body every now and then, if she could. It would be good for her, the therapist coaxed. It might help her find some balance through the instability of loss. So when she saw a friend announce on Instagram that he was teaching an all-Beyoncé dance class, she decided to go. She was immediately surprised by the joy it gave her. The empowering, badass beats, moving to the choreography—it all helped to give her a welcome break from her own head. Her then-boyfriend, and now husband and business partner, suggested that she organize her own casual class, just her and a few friends having a blast and dancing to nothing but Beyoncé songs. MacLean-Magbanua was eager to revisit the sense of peace she had found through dance. She announced a drop-in class, expecting a few friends who felt obligated to come. Instead, the class was over capacity. "And it really snowballed from there," she said.
  
  For the next few years, she ran drop-in classes three times a week in Vancouver, and hosted pop-ups in Calgary and Toronto under the name RSVP 33. Many of the people who attended the class were beginner dancers, or hadn't stepped into a studio since they were kids. MacLean-Magbanua welcomed all levels of experience. For her, the classes' ethos wasn't so much about perfecting the moves—although clients certainly learned new skills—but about providing a space where people could feel empowered, silly, sexy, or whatever else they needed to feel in that particular moment. She wanted them to feel safe enough, and supported enough, to unlock something in their bodies: grief, trauma, happiness, loss. She wanted them to have fun. Throughout RSVP 33's rapid organic growth, she kept her day job in tourism communications and marketing, working full-time right up until she decided to open a permanent studio and rebrand as Formation. By February, her new business had started to hit its groove. She was looking forward to March. Within a week of the month's start, however, an uneasy, anxious feeling thrummed through the city. MacLean-Magbanua remembers looking at the studio's schedule on Wednesday, March 11. Every day straight through Monday was booked solid. And then on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, more people started dropping off, one by one, leaves in autumn. On Monday, March 16, MacLean-Magbanua ran her usual 7 a.m. class, not yet knowing it would be the last one.
  
  After the class, she and her husband went out for coffee to chat about what they should do. Everything felt eerie and possibly unsafe. Their province hadn't yet announced a state of emergency, but neither one wanted to put their employees or their clients in danger. They'd stocked the studio with hand sanitizer and encouraged people to wash their hands. But nobody could tell them if they had done enough because nobody knew. Like many others, they felt stuck in limbo, collecting more questions than answers. And so, that morning, they decided to shut down the studio. It felt wrong to keep it open, pretending there was no risk. MacLean-Magbanua felt relieved to have finally made a decision, and it also broke her heart. She had no idea if she'd scrape together enough cash to keep paying rent. Her team didn't qualify for EI because they hadn't been open long enough, and at the time, they had no idea if extra aid was coming—or if their employees would qualify for it. When she locked the doors that day, she didn't know when, or if, she'd ever reopen them again for her clients. "Truthfully, the future is unclear for us," she wrote in a graceful Instagram post announcing the closure. "This is not a time to panic, it is a time for us all to take responsibility, stay grounded, and do our part."
  
  For the first few weeks of the lockdown, MacLean-Magbanua was, as she puts it, "an emotional disaster." Everything that was spinning around the world—the shock, trauma, grief—was also a tornado inside of her, every bad headline a new piece of debris. But in between journalling and becoming a Bon Appétit superfan, MacLean-Magbanua was also working hard to help her business make it through. Like many fitness studio owners, she and her husband crafted a plan to try online classes. They had already invested in film equipment and, after brief inertia, moved quickly to film their instructors inside the studio, creating a vault of footage; luckily, the space was big enough to do it safely. In addition to building a digital content library, MacLean-Magbanua also chose to offer regular free live video classes, something she kept up for months, including after reopening in June. She wanted her instructors to have an opportunity to work. She also figured people just needed to dance. She didn't want to hoard such a powerful healing tool, one that had anchored her when she thought it was impossible. "Even if you're not in the same room, you're collectively creating energy for your space," she said. "It was like we were all still together." And, in a time of crushing isolation, that counted for a lot.
  
  By far her biggest emotional challenge was not worrying what would happen to Formation itself, but what would happen to her team. MacLean-Magbanua had the foresight to make her instructors staff employees, not contractors, unlike many in the fitness industry—meaning, they'd be eligible for support they otherwise might not have received. In the early chaotic days, though, that support was like having a wish without a genie's lamp. She felt an overwhelming, suffocating responsibility right up until the start of CERB, which she and her husband also accessed. Relief for her business didn't come until much later. When it was first launched on April 9, the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program had an applicant threshold of $50,000 in payroll in 2019. As a new business, MacLean-Magbanua couldn't meet it. When it later dropped to $25,000, she was finally able to access the interest-free loan program, which offers small businesses and non-profits up to $40,000. By October 2020, more than 750,000 businesses had received CEBA loans, totalling $30.24 billion. A $5,000 grant from Bumble (yes, the dating app) had kept MacLean-Magbanua going until then. She felt fortunate for the cash, even if, in June, she still wasn't sure what her future held.
  
  Already, many fellow business owners in her network had made the difficult decision to close permanently. Driving down the street where Formation is located, she'd see a checkerboard of dark storefronts. Each one was a lost livelihood, a vanished community, the culmination of someone's hustle and hard work and creativity suddenly gone. She sometimes wondered if she would join them.