Task 2D - Inquiry

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find more about? Who do you admire who also makes you enthusiastic?

I love to choreograph, this is a real passion that i want to take on further when I have finished my performing career. I am really lucky to have to opportunity whist on board to, along with my fellow cast members, choreograph and put together a bumper show that will be performed on the theaters 'dark night' on the 8 day cruises. Although the style of the show will me more typical Jazz with elements of cabaret and burlesque which is not the style I would naturally choreograph in but will be a great experience to learn from other cast members about their style. I naturally use contemporary for the basis of my choreography as I like to create abstract pieces of work that make the audience think and means they have a lot to look at on stage. I would like to find more about how physiology like to how a dancer performed. We have had quite a few issues already in my current contract that have meant a lot of feelings have been flying around and situations arising. I would like to see how issues outside of work effect issues inside and compare this to other jobs inside and outside of the artistic industry. I would love to connect these two ideas and see how I can explore this idea though dance and how I can get an audience to think about these issues. A choreographer I really admire is Wayne McGregor he looked in to the idea of how the body created movement, how the nervous system and the brain sent messages to the muscles to create the shapes. He collaborated with Cambridge University to research this before starting to choreograph. My cousin also introduced me to a few interesting ideas from her course where she majored in Philosophy. I also think these would be interesting to look into through choreography.

What makes you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who share your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

It makes me angry that people think that those working in the arts profession are not as intellectually capable as those working in an office for example. The stereo type of dancers being thick is really frustrating especially when you think that they have to remember choreography, retain the details, perform, use reflection in action  as well as reflecting after. I don't think I can pinpoint just one person who feels this, I think that this is the general consensus across the whole of the performing arts industry. 

What do you love about what you do? who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

I love performing and choreographing just as much as each other. I love feeling that I am giving the audience a part of myself when I perform and the enjoyment they get from watching me. With choreography I love to experiment, be that with different themes, shapes, musicality I am really eager to explore how I can get the audience interested and thinking about what I am trying to put across. Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker seems to also love this, she experiments with the use of cannon, creating seemingly complex timings that come together in moments of connection. She also still loves to perform so occasionally will choreograph herself into her pieces.  

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 question as you?

There are a lot of thingsI don't think i understand. On a business level I don't understand what is entailed with being self employed, I don't understand how tax's work or how they effect me, what am I meant to do with them, I don't understand the running of a business. However, I have never had to deal with these sorts of things, I know I will need to look at it and learn about it at some point in the future as it will be relevant to me but right now I don't feel it is relevant to me work to make an inquiry about it.  On a more academic level, I don't understand how the mind works and I am very interested in the psychology and even sociology of the dancers working environment, be that on a sip, in a company or as a free lance performer or teacher. As I have said previously Wayne McGregor has looked at this in depth and has created pieces of dance to explore further in to his study, I think he has made the research process very interesting by gathering his knowledge to create a beautiful piece of art. 

From looking at my answers to these questions I can see a few possible lines of inquiry emerging:

Psychology of dancers in the workplace and outside

Sociology within different working environments for dancers

Philosophy 

The way different choreographers research or look in to subject matters

At the moment I feel these lines of inquiry are very broad so I need to research a little in to each to find specific ideas I want to research in to depth.

Christmas Time

We started rehearsals for our on board christmas show yesterday and I was so pleased to find that I was chosen to do the Adage (a partner work duet). This really proves that hard work does pay off!

Task 2B - Reflective Writing

I started out on this task by writing the journal how I would usually go about writing reflectively. This seemed to take the form of a mixture of description and initial reflection. I have since gone on to experiment with the different ways of writing about events that have happened in the day.

Initially I found it hard to know what to write about. I was worried that there was not enough going on from a professional sense to write about. Working on a Ship that runs 7 day cruises and only performing and having scheduled rehearsals on 2 of them I was struggling to balance the profession verses personal events that I would normally evaluate. Reflecting on this I can see that for this job specifically a lot of what happens out of being clocked in really does affect what happens when we are. We are living and working so closely together that it is almost like we are working 24/7. I have also realized that I can reflect on duties that we have to perform in addition to the shows. Even though these are not ‘dance’ based they still come in to my life as a professional dancer and are part of my job.

I have found a lot of the techniques really useful and interesting to do even if I may not use them again.

Description

I did use this initially but combined with Initial Reflection. I find that using description on it’s own does not really help with reflection as I was just stating what was happening in the day with no emotion attached to it. However, I do feel that description is necessary when combined with other techniques so when I look back on the event I know what happened so can link it with the feeling.

Initial Reflection

Again I initially did this combined with Description. Similarly, I find that just using initial reflection meant that when I looked back on what I wrote I could not connect it with anything, I was just writing about how I could have improved the situation that I did not explain so it did not really make sense when making an overall reflection.

List

I found that this did not help me at all. I found I had too much to put in to just a list so I was making lists inside lists inside lists which was getting too confusing. I would however add lists in when writing in notes from rehearsals, as this is how I write them down when being told my corrections. Writing them out again in my journal I feel helps a lot with remembering them and putting them in to place.

Evaluation

I liked using this technique as I really felt in enabled me to reflect on what had happened. This gave me a focus rather than just trying to reflect I could clearly say what I think went well or didn’t, why I felt that and how I could improve my actions the next time a similar situation arose.

Graphs/Charts

I am not quite sure what to make of this one. I tried to use like a flow chart of what happened in the day with the times so I could see how much time I had spent doing what so I could see what I should have done instead. Using this method will help with my time management but I would like to try using spider diagrams or bar charts/line graphs to see how my feelings or mood changes though a day or a particular event. I really feel that keeping track of how I am feeling will help my professional practice as I will come across as a happier and more confident person to my colleague.

Another View

I loved writing this one, defiantly the most fun one to try. I did it from the point of view of my name tag which we have to wear everywhere we go on the ship so it was so interesting how something else would see exactly what you are doing but looking at it from a different perspective. I also had a prime opportunity to use writing from another persons perspective of a specific situation. There were some issues regarding the cast and we went to talk to the dance captain about it so it would have been interesting to look at her perspective of the meeting. However, unfortunately I missed the opportunity to write about it as I should have written the same day. I would like to experiment using this technique at some point, especially if a similar situation arises. I really like this technique but would not use it every day, just when I feel I need to look at something from a different perspective.

I have found this task really interesting overall, it has given me a lot to think about how I can evaluate myself and any given situation in a different way to put a different light on things. I am going to continue to experiment with all of the techniques when I feel they are suitable for the situation. However, I am going to use a mixture of description, initial reflection and evaluation on a daily basis. This will help me when looking over previous logs as I will know what was going on, how I felt about it and how I proposed to move forward then compare with the current situation to see if I put my own advice in to play.

Task 1D

Hi all,

I have now set up my Flickr account. I have just got headshots and a couple of group photos on at the moment but will be taking more dance photos soon :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/emily-jay/