What in your daily practice are you really enthusiastic to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?
As a trained performer I am very inspired by other professional dancers singers and actors, I get great joy out of watching YouTube clips and find it a great way to lift my spirits on a bad day, recently all over facebook my dancer friend have been sharing one particular dance clip which is really inspirational to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14p7tkbZ1Sw
Watching videos like this really make me remember why I love my chosen career path so much! The talent is unreal!
Kristen Chenoweth is someone who I admire and have admired for many years! She is the definition of a triple threat! I first found out about her when I bought the original 'Wicked' soundtrack. Kristen was the first Glenda and since then I have always followed her. One of my most favourite performances of hers was when she sung 'Taylor the Latte Boy' her comic timing is just perfect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXS0nEOx_20
Kristen is performing at the Royal Albert hall in July and me and my mum are looking into buying tickets. Going to the theatre is the a hobby of mine with gets me the most enthusiastic about my passion. There's no better feeling after watching a musical, its inspiring, spirit-lifting and feel good!
What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around this sadness or anger?
In my dance practice, one thing that gets me angry is when professional companies expect dancers to work for free! We have trained most of our lives to make a living out of something we are passionate about, we have worked our hardest in the hope of being on stage and performing to hundreds and thousand of people, but this is something that some companies can take advantage of, they advertise it at good exposure and experience. I read recently that Kylie Minogue's dancers were expected to work for free as they didn't have money in there budget to cover the extra costs.
This is something that we as are seeing too often, not only in dance but across all performing arts. The sad part is that people are so desperate to get themselves seen by anyone possible that they will work under these circumstances, which really undermines those that are wanting this as a profession. Organisations expect people to work for little to no pay at all just because this is something we love; and that's not sustainable in any industry.
I admire all the performers in this industry who refuse to work for less than the Equity rate. Equity, the trade union for the performing arts, has negotiated minimum weekly pay rates with the Independent Theatre Council of £420.
'As a leading industry organisation, Equity is known and respected nationally and internationally for the work we do with, and on behalf of, our members working across all areas of the entertainment industry.'- Equity website.
What do you love about what you do? Who do you admire who also seems to love this or an example of what you love?
I love the excitement and variety of what this industry has to offer. The hundreds of different avenues and journeys performing arts can lead to. We are so lucky to have such a wide range of skills that not only lead to performance but also many other different career paths. As we all know, dancing is not something we can do forever and there are many things we can do in the future which is connected to our qualifications, even more so now I am on the BAPP course I have opened many more doors of opportunities, the world is our oyster and that is the beauty of this amazing industry.
I admire all the people I have been lucky to work with throughout my dancing life. Especially my dance teacher who taught me from the age of 3-17, she always believed in me and instilled the love in dance that I still strongly have to this day. All of the staff and professions I have been privileged to have met whilst at college, who always gave off an infectious enthusiastic energy, all these people have been the inspiration for me to achieve and continue my love for my chosen profession.
What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions to you?
The thing I don't understand about this industry is how you go to an audition and can do amazingly well, I once got down to the final 4 dancers for the Royal Caribbean cruise ship for Chicago, I felt a great sense of achievement and it gave me tons of confidence, even though I was unsuccessful in getting the contract. So obviously I went along to the next one, it was the exact same cruise ship and show, they even did the same audition sequence; but this time I was cut in the first round! How can that be right? A few months earlier I was so close to the end and then that happens?
Time and time again I see people getting picked for parts and I just don't see why they have been chosen. Throughout my training teachers always had their 'favourites' they weren't necessarily the most talented students, but for some reason or another they got given better opportunities and I just didn't understand why, I would find it so frustrating. Why wasn't it me? What have I done wrong? And this is just something that will never ever change in this industry, sayings such as 'its who you know' how can that come above roar and pure talent? I suppose we will never be able to answer this, different companies and organisations will like different things. What someone may hate, somebody else could love and that will never change.
I have had this debate with my mum many times, crying down the phone asking her why. My mum is a great believer in fate and says that everything happens for a reason, this is something I now strongly believe in and it has really helped me to come to terms with all the knock backs and look towards the future instead of dwelling on the past.
How do you decide the appropriate ethical response to give in a situation? To what extent are disciplinary responses different to that you might expect more generally in society? For example, what level of physical contact would you deem appropriate (and not) from another professional that you would find unacceptable more generally? Why?
I think its very important to act and respond in a particular way depending on the situation, for example the way you might approach a teacher at college would be different to the way you would speak and approach your fellow students. Its crazy how some teachers at college felt its was okay to be so cruel and nasty to students. They said it was a way of toughening us up for the outside world, but being personal and down right rude was definitely not necessary or helpful. I think it's really important to have a healthy relationship between student and teacher, and by this I mean a friendly and respectful one, but the way I witnessed some teachers behaving at college was not respectful to students, yet they expected the upmost respect of each and every student.
Growing up in the dance world, I have always been very confident and open about getting changed infront of people, during quick changes in shows there is no time to be embarrassed when you have 20 seconds to change, I suppose this is something you wouldn't find in many other professions but we have no other option. I also think as dancers we are very open with our feeling and not afraid to show affection and physical contact. Doing paux de deux at college meant we had to be confident in working in partners and not to let it phase us or worry us.
Tuesday 29 April 2014
Monday 28 April 2014
Task 2c: Reflective theory
What is Reflection?
Reflection is an everyday process. We reflect on a wide range of situations and problems on a day to day basis. Reflection is a huge part of work based learning. It allows us to think deeper into certain situations and enables us to think about what worked well/ didn't work well and decide how to change the situation for the better. Reflective practice teaches us to discuss how different circumstances make us feel and to see a particular situation from the view of somebody else. There are many different reflective theories which I will be discussing.
Throughout my years training at college, I was unknowingly reflecting all of the time. Not necessarily written down reflection, but during dance classes almost every lesson I would reflect upon my own work and think about what worked well and how to improve myself. Although I had been reflection in that way, I had never before kept a journal so doing this was all new to me. Learning from experience is a way of turning information into knowledge and this work based learning course relies heavily on this method of work.
David Boud refers to reflection as a key tool for understanding and learning from experience, he writes about looking at our own experience's and comparing them to other peoples existing understanding to learn something new. I found his example of learning from experience (the meaning of bachelor) really helpful as it gave me full understanding of this way of reflection. Boud's theory really got me thinking about how much we learn on a daily basis without even realising. This helps me on my BAPP journey to reflect on my experiences as a means to learn something new. Since starting my journal I've learnt a lot about myself, I wasn't aware of my attitude when going in for a dance audition, after evaluating myself I realised that I need to change my outlook on auditions and go into them with a lot more confidence and fight rather that going in already defeated! So next time, that is exactly what I will do! I'm so glad I was writing my journal at that time because if I wasn't I wouldn't have reflected and evaluated myself so much, but because of this course its given me the kick up the bum I've needed to go into those auditions and believe in myself! I've got an audition at the end of may so I will be sure to right a journal about that days events and compare it to the last audition!
Reflection can also help people in the process of change. Dewey was interested in experience and believed there were different levels of experience. He thought that the quality of education was linked to the engagement with, and consciousness of the experience (Dewey, 1916) for example the higher the education the better the experience and engagement; therefore enabling you to learn more. Like Dewey, Kurt Lewin was also interested in a social change in experiential learning he came up with a theory he called 'spiral steps' a way of dividing a certain experience into individual steps: action, evaluation, planning and action. This is a great way of breaking the situation down and working out a better outcome.
David Kolb developed the learning cycle. By using this theory we can identify the experience and realise the tools we need to be able to reflect on the experience. The learning cycle is on-going, with one point leading on to the next, therefore there is no beginning and end, but it is up to us to decide where we start to learn something new. The different points of the cycle are:
After watching a few different videos and reading up on information I started to use trial and error, and put into practice what I had learnt from research (Active experimentation) because I have used a lot of web 2.0 site in the past I realised it wouldn't be much different to setting up something like a facebook account therefore I would end the cycle using concrete experience. The way in which I learnt to set up my blog is the same way I would learn a new dance sequence; I find it helpful to learn from others for example the teacher and would then carry on the cycle from there.
Howard Gardner introduced the idea or multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) he thought people were intelligent in a number of different ways. He discussed the ideas of VAK learners. Gardner developed these 3 different learning styles but he also believed we should not limit ourselves to being just one kind of learner, but to realised there are different ways in which people prefer to learn. For myself I believe I am a Auditory learner, l learn best by being told the information where as other people will prefer to learn through sight or learn through experience.
Honey and Mumford created four stages, this was inspired by Kolb's cycle:
Donald Schon introduced reflection-in-action (RIA) and reflection-on-action (ROA) this is the idea that you can reflect in the situation or the reflection can come after it has happened. RIA is most common in artists whereby we realise something is not working so we change the steps there and then where as ROA is used mostly by academics who go away and look back at what has happened afterwards.
Kottcamp uses the terms on-line (RIA) and off-line (ROA) he discusses how RIA is harder to achieve but most powerful for improvement and ROA is done at a time when full attention can be given to analysis and planning for the future (Kottcamp, 1990) I believe both of these ways of reflection are equally important. Being from an artistic background I have always used RIA therefore it is second nature for me but I realise for this course it is particularly important to use ROA which I am less familiar with.
Kottcamps theory got me thinking about his stereotype of dancers, he believed dancers were Kinaesthetic learners but this is not necessarily true for all dancers. Although I am a Kinaesthetic learner when I am learning a dance sequence, I am also a Auditory learner when learning academically which brings us back to Gardners theory that we don't have to limit ourselves to being just one type of learner.
Tactic knowledge is the fact that we can know more that we can tell (Polanyi, 1966) Tharp explains the idea of muscle memory when demonstrating a dance as tactic knowledge. As dancers we are not used to explaining the steps therefore when asked to do so we may hesitate or second guess ourselves. We are not confident in using language to interpret something we know nonverbally (Tharp and Reiter, 2006) Tharp also talks about being a choreographer, and the importance of being able to 'come up with the goods' therefore she has to develop a different reflective practice to be sure she is in touch with the muscle memory.
Tufnell and Crickmay discuss how our body is the ground from which all our knowing of the world begins (2004) Without the sense of the body we loose connection to what is around us. This shows that reflection does not have to happen as a written process but it is important to be able to do so.
Reader 2 has given me a greater knowledge and understanding of the different types of reflection. Its helped me within the course to analyse and evaluate my own experience to create a better outcome. It has taught me to be more positive and confident in certain situations. It has helped me not only with my BAPP course but also in my personal life.
Reflection is an everyday process. We reflect on a wide range of situations and problems on a day to day basis. Reflection is a huge part of work based learning. It allows us to think deeper into certain situations and enables us to think about what worked well/ didn't work well and decide how to change the situation for the better. Reflective practice teaches us to discuss how different circumstances make us feel and to see a particular situation from the view of somebody else. There are many different reflective theories which I will be discussing.
Throughout my years training at college, I was unknowingly reflecting all of the time. Not necessarily written down reflection, but during dance classes almost every lesson I would reflect upon my own work and think about what worked well and how to improve myself. Although I had been reflection in that way, I had never before kept a journal so doing this was all new to me. Learning from experience is a way of turning information into knowledge and this work based learning course relies heavily on this method of work.
David Boud refers to reflection as a key tool for understanding and learning from experience, he writes about looking at our own experience's and comparing them to other peoples existing understanding to learn something new. I found his example of learning from experience (the meaning of bachelor) really helpful as it gave me full understanding of this way of reflection. Boud's theory really got me thinking about how much we learn on a daily basis without even realising. This helps me on my BAPP journey to reflect on my experiences as a means to learn something new. Since starting my journal I've learnt a lot about myself, I wasn't aware of my attitude when going in for a dance audition, after evaluating myself I realised that I need to change my outlook on auditions and go into them with a lot more confidence and fight rather that going in already defeated! So next time, that is exactly what I will do! I'm so glad I was writing my journal at that time because if I wasn't I wouldn't have reflected and evaluated myself so much, but because of this course its given me the kick up the bum I've needed to go into those auditions and believe in myself! I've got an audition at the end of may so I will be sure to right a journal about that days events and compare it to the last audition!
Reflection can also help people in the process of change. Dewey was interested in experience and believed there were different levels of experience. He thought that the quality of education was linked to the engagement with, and consciousness of the experience (Dewey, 1916) for example the higher the education the better the experience and engagement; therefore enabling you to learn more. Like Dewey, Kurt Lewin was also interested in a social change in experiential learning he came up with a theory he called 'spiral steps' a way of dividing a certain experience into individual steps: action, evaluation, planning and action. This is a great way of breaking the situation down and working out a better outcome.
David Kolb developed the learning cycle. By using this theory we can identify the experience and realise the tools we need to be able to reflect on the experience. The learning cycle is on-going, with one point leading on to the next, therefore there is no beginning and end, but it is up to us to decide where we start to learn something new. The different points of the cycle are:
- Concrete Experience
- Reflective Observation
- Abstract Conceptualisation
- Active Experimentation
After watching a few different videos and reading up on information I started to use trial and error, and put into practice what I had learnt from research (Active experimentation) because I have used a lot of web 2.0 site in the past I realised it wouldn't be much different to setting up something like a facebook account therefore I would end the cycle using concrete experience. The way in which I learnt to set up my blog is the same way I would learn a new dance sequence; I find it helpful to learn from others for example the teacher and would then carry on the cycle from there.
Howard Gardner introduced the idea or multiple intelligences (Gardner, 1983) he thought people were intelligent in a number of different ways. He discussed the ideas of VAK learners. Gardner developed these 3 different learning styles but he also believed we should not limit ourselves to being just one kind of learner, but to realised there are different ways in which people prefer to learn. For myself I believe I am a Auditory learner, l learn best by being told the information where as other people will prefer to learn through sight or learn through experience.
Honey and Mumford created four stages, this was inspired by Kolb's cycle:
- Having an experience
- Reviewing the experience
- Concluding from the experience
- Planning the next steps
Donald Schon introduced reflection-in-action (RIA) and reflection-on-action (ROA) this is the idea that you can reflect in the situation or the reflection can come after it has happened. RIA is most common in artists whereby we realise something is not working so we change the steps there and then where as ROA is used mostly by academics who go away and look back at what has happened afterwards.
Kottcamp uses the terms on-line (RIA) and off-line (ROA) he discusses how RIA is harder to achieve but most powerful for improvement and ROA is done at a time when full attention can be given to analysis and planning for the future (Kottcamp, 1990) I believe both of these ways of reflection are equally important. Being from an artistic background I have always used RIA therefore it is second nature for me but I realise for this course it is particularly important to use ROA which I am less familiar with.
Kottcamps theory got me thinking about his stereotype of dancers, he believed dancers were Kinaesthetic learners but this is not necessarily true for all dancers. Although I am a Kinaesthetic learner when I am learning a dance sequence, I am also a Auditory learner when learning academically which brings us back to Gardners theory that we don't have to limit ourselves to being just one type of learner.
Tactic knowledge is the fact that we can know more that we can tell (Polanyi, 1966) Tharp explains the idea of muscle memory when demonstrating a dance as tactic knowledge. As dancers we are not used to explaining the steps therefore when asked to do so we may hesitate or second guess ourselves. We are not confident in using language to interpret something we know nonverbally (Tharp and Reiter, 2006) Tharp also talks about being a choreographer, and the importance of being able to 'come up with the goods' therefore she has to develop a different reflective practice to be sure she is in touch with the muscle memory.
Tufnell and Crickmay discuss how our body is the ground from which all our knowing of the world begins (2004) Without the sense of the body we loose connection to what is around us. This shows that reflection does not have to happen as a written process but it is important to be able to do so.
Reader 2 has given me a greater knowledge and understanding of the different types of reflection. Its helped me within the course to analyse and evaluate my own experience to create a better outcome. It has taught me to be more positive and confident in certain situations. It has helped me not only with my BAPP course but also in my personal life.
Tuesday 15 April 2014
Task 2b: Reflective writing
Ok so I decided to try out the different ways of writing on a day that I had a dance audition down in London.
I firstly used description then initial reflection, evaluation, graphs, what if and another view. I was really surprised at how much these different reflecting styles really helped my get deep into my thought process.
The first method I tried was Description this involved my purely writing out my days events in a diary format, writing in order exactly what happened and what the main events were. I found this the easiest method to start with as I had the main bulk of facts to build on with each other reflecting style.
The second one I used was Initial Reflection I found this way of writing the most eye opening. I thought about my emotions and feelings throughout the day before, during and after the audition, and it showed me a lot. I'm glad I chose this particular day to try out these different methods because its showed me my attitude towards auditions which I hadn't noticed before. Its enabled me to think about how I act in these situations and how I could change my attitude to be more positive and relaxed.
Evaluation flowed perfectly after initial reflection as it allowed me to reflect on my feelings/emotions from the days events. I was able to criticise and analyse myself which is a very important part of reflection. Thinking about what worked well is a vital part of journal writing and allows the writer to notice what needs changing or improving. Without evaluation how could I overcome bad feelings or change for the best?
The next one I tried out was Graphs, charts and diagrams at first I wasn't sure about this; how could drawing a chart help me to reflect? But it really did! I decided to put all of my feeling from throughout the day into a graph, it showed the ups and downs of my day and showed me what worked well and what needs improving. This is something I am going to create for each day so I can look back and see the changes.
What if? Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? Wondering what if can be quite depressing because it means recognising what you actually did wasn't that great! In my situation, wondering what if I had done things differently that day could have created a different outcome! But on the other hand it can be quite motivating for the future and actually is a good way of concluding the day. Writing down what could have happened, what I would have loved to happen can also give a positive attitude for the future and creates a better mind-set for next time I am in that particular situation!
The final method I tried was Another view this could involve writing about the day from another persons perspective or looking at the day from the view of someone you had a professional disagreement with. After doing this at the end of my journal I found it helpful to see my day from a different view point and also how someone else saw me in a particular situation.
After trying out all the different writing styles I see the importance of them all and how they help to get an overall view of the days events and reflect on each part. I realise that the styles that work best for me may not work as well for others. I need to decide which ones are most effective for me and continue to use them throughout the reflective process of this course.
I firstly used description then initial reflection, evaluation, graphs, what if and another view. I was really surprised at how much these different reflecting styles really helped my get deep into my thought process.
The first method I tried was Description this involved my purely writing out my days events in a diary format, writing in order exactly what happened and what the main events were. I found this the easiest method to start with as I had the main bulk of facts to build on with each other reflecting style.
The second one I used was Initial Reflection I found this way of writing the most eye opening. I thought about my emotions and feelings throughout the day before, during and after the audition, and it showed me a lot. I'm glad I chose this particular day to try out these different methods because its showed me my attitude towards auditions which I hadn't noticed before. Its enabled me to think about how I act in these situations and how I could change my attitude to be more positive and relaxed.
Evaluation flowed perfectly after initial reflection as it allowed me to reflect on my feelings/emotions from the days events. I was able to criticise and analyse myself which is a very important part of reflection. Thinking about what worked well is a vital part of journal writing and allows the writer to notice what needs changing or improving. Without evaluation how could I overcome bad feelings or change for the best?
The next one I tried out was Graphs, charts and diagrams at first I wasn't sure about this; how could drawing a chart help me to reflect? But it really did! I decided to put all of my feeling from throughout the day into a graph, it showed the ups and downs of my day and showed me what worked well and what needs improving. This is something I am going to create for each day so I can look back and see the changes.
What if? Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing? Wondering what if can be quite depressing because it means recognising what you actually did wasn't that great! In my situation, wondering what if I had done things differently that day could have created a different outcome! But on the other hand it can be quite motivating for the future and actually is a good way of concluding the day. Writing down what could have happened, what I would have loved to happen can also give a positive attitude for the future and creates a better mind-set for next time I am in that particular situation!
The final method I tried was Another view this could involve writing about the day from another persons perspective or looking at the day from the view of someone you had a professional disagreement with. After doing this at the end of my journal I found it helpful to see my day from a different view point and also how someone else saw me in a particular situation.
After trying out all the different writing styles I see the importance of them all and how they help to get an overall view of the days events and reflect on each part. I realise that the styles that work best for me may not work as well for others. I need to decide which ones are most effective for me and continue to use them throughout the reflective process of this course.
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