UniHub

Is anyone else having problems with the unihub page? It won't seem to open in my browser!
can anyone help?

Emily x

Award Title rational

I have decided that I would like my award title to be:

BA (hons) Professional Practice in Dance Performance and Choreography

I feel that this adequately explains all I want to gain from my career, reflecting my knowledge and expertise. This title will support me through both aspects; Dance performance is particularly relevant to what I am doing at the moment and in the immediate future; Dance choreography is what I am striving for further down the line. Choreography is the topic of my Inquiry so I felt that this needed to be included in my award title. I am looking in to how choreographers made the transition from performer to choreographer which is what I really want to do. During my training at The Hammond we had many choreography assessment, my final one gaining me an extremely high mark. I was also specifically picked out of my year group to choreograph a piece for our end of year show, this received a very good review. My final project, Independent Research Project, for my Diploma was also based on choreography. I looked at a number of choreographers, their background, their works and their styles. From this I choreographed a few short sequences and a full-length piece taking inspiration from each of the choreographers. Therefore I think it is relevant to have choreography in my award title.

Further more, this course only makes up the final third of the degree, there fore it is appropriate to have an award title relevant to your previous training, which I feel this does due to my extensive performance and choreography experience at The Hammond School. I was contemplating including Technique in to the title however I feel that it is not necessary. In the dance industry, with the training I have received, it would be expected that I have good technique. I feel that I would not benefit greatly in adding it to my award title, it would just make it unnecessarily long.

A Critical Reflection on Module 2 – Principles in professional Inquiry

Upon embarking on this module, it initially took me a while to figure which line I wanted my inquiry to take. I started to think about what goals I wanted to achieve in my career; becoming a choreographer and setting up my own contemporary dance company. I then put a set of questions together (appendix A) thinking about choreography plus the business side of starting my own company. I decided to narrow down my ideas as this line was so vast and focus on the choreography element. I developed another set of questions (appendix B) focusing on choreography. I was able to discuss my ideas with Alan via Skype and refined my idea, deciding on my most promising inquiry line (appendix C).

I joined a SIG on LinkedIn created by Emily Brenchley (see appendix C). I engaged well with the SIG at the start of the module, however, more recently I have not been engaging as much as I could. I need to discuss my ideas for my inquiry in more depth, this would help to develop my interview questions and define those that will initiate the interviewee to give the most relevant and helpful information. I am going to ask my SIG to proof read and give feedback on my interview questions before sending them out to interviewees, this will give me a clear indication of how they are going to come across via email and if they will help my inquiry.

The award title I have decided upon is: BA (hons) Professional Practice in Dance Performance and Choreography. After writing my award title rationale and sending it to Alan he said he would support this, although, I would have to be prepared that the board may reject the choreography element as it is not relevant to my practice at the moment. I then reevaluated my rationale including more about why I think that choreography is a relevant element to my title (appendix D). I added in more specifics about my inquiry and made it clear that it was looking along the line of choreography, as well as adding in more about the choreography work I did whilst at The Hammond School. I now feel that my award title is stronger due to my rationale and I have been able to justify this award title.

I have not had much experience with dealing or even thinking about ethics so I found this section of the module very insightful. I was made to think about what assumptions I make about the ethics within a company (appendix E). Looking at the bigger picture rather than those that just affect me (appendix F) will make me more aware of those ethics I need to think about for my own inquiry.

After experimenting with tools of inquiry (appendix G) I have been able to identify the best tool to help gather data for my line of inquiry. Although piloting the focus group and the questionnaire were useful in finding out about how my inquiry would help others, interviews will be the best tool of investigation to lead me to answer my inquiry question. Along with researching literature I will be able to gain the most helpful information directly from choreographers.

Appendix A: http://emilyjayoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/task-4a.html

Appendix B: http://emilyjayoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/task-4a-development.html

Appendix C: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/SIG-those-inquiring-along-lines-4318583?home=&gid=4318583&trk=anet_ug_hm&goback=%2Egmp_4318583

Appendix D: “An exploration of how established choreographers have made the transition from performing to choreographing.”

Appendix E: http://emilyjayoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/task-5a-ethics-within-my-place-of-work.html

Appendix F: http://emilyjayoshea.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/task-5b.html

Appendix G: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zjPDfgGvTyPhBBEbPUbVlUQXu5XLoFKaz7ylyfxOywM/edit

6B – Critical reflection on the tools that can be used to help an Inquiry.

This is my reflection on the tools of professional inquiry I piloted:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zjPDfgGvTyPhBBEbPUbVlUQXu5XLoFKaz7ylyfxOywM/edit

See what you think x

Literature Review 3

this a review of a section in Fifty Contemporary Choreographers ... I wanted to scan the pages so you would know the piece i was reviewing, however, i can't seem to work my scanner which is annoying!


https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yB-aoNB4gLMMuLoeuVdwFHkVYeMw-mIcikhQXU2SHZE/edit

Literature Review 2

Now I am back in the country I have decided to use Google doc's again!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10cTJcMMa9mlBgTATqAYhxGKfVoi76Ayt-4P2KvPzRqI/edit

See what you think x

Literature Review 1

*** I was going to put this on to google docs but as I am in France at the moment google docs will only come up in french so i can't understand it!! slightly frustrating! so here it is in a post***

Review of http://blog.sokanu.com/so-youre-thinking-of-becoming-a-choreographer. This is an article written about becoming a choreographer, what it entails and how to get there.

I both like and dislike this article. I found that there is a lot of information in here but not all of it is accurate. It is also very vague skipping over a lot of facts that could have been explained in a lot more detail, making it ore useful. I decided to review this piece of literature as it is along the same line as the article I am thinking of writing, however, this does not include any quotes backing up what the author is saying.

The article starts of looking really promising. It starts by explaining what exactly a choreographer is: “The word choreography literally means “dance writing”.” I found this opening sentence really intriguing, I had never thought about describing choreographing like this. It makes you think that in essence a choreographer is an author in the most visual sense. The rest of the opening paragraph is informative and concise, stating exactly what a choreographer does.

Further in to this section of the article the author starts to describe the personality traits that would help in becoming a successful choreographer:

“Choreographers must have an excellent understanding of the specific type of dance they choose to teach. Creativity, physical strength, flexibility, coordination, patience, and perseverance are must-have characteristics. Choreographers must have excellent communication skills and have an ability to be a leader and motivate a variety of dancers. They must be able to work as part of a team and must also be able to work under stress and pressure in a chaotic environment.”

Although I do agree with a lot of what the author is saying, I don’t think that using ‘must’ for especially the middle sentence is accurate. Yes choreographers need to have a lot of knowledge on the type of dance they choose to choreograph in and they need to be able to work as a team to get along with the dancer they are choreographing on. On the other hand, the characteristics described in the second sentence, although very valuable, are not a necessity. I feel that as long as the choreographer has chosen dancers that they feel will portray the image they have in their head it is not necessary for them to have the physical capabilities to do the exact movement, as long as they are able to describe it. Look at the majority of ballet masters and mistresses in the big ballet companies, they no longer are able to get their legs around their ears but they are still able to get the right action out of their dancers.

I also disagree with the statement ‘Choreographers typically are older dancers’ There are so many young talented choreographers in the world, yes she uses ‘typically’ however I feel that there is a huge mix of ages of choreographers. For example some of the bigger choreographers such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, Michael Clark and William Forsythe started choreographing and set up their own companies in their early twenties.

I do really like the fact that the author has listed all the possible tasks required by a choreographer. They cover every aspect of choreography, from choreographing amateur productions to choreographing for big companies to choreographing for kids in local competitions and shows. This would be very informative for a reader thinking about going in choreography. It would make them think about all of tasks involved, not just putting a few steps together but the paper work side of choreographing and the organisation.

The section titled “What it takes to be a choreographer” is just a hash of information. I don’t feel any of it is backed up with evidence or explanation. The author just seems to be putting in random unexplained and frankly incorrect sentences like; “Choreographers are former dancers with years of experience working in the theater and with dance companies.”  This is very infuriating and the reader isn’t gaining any real knowledge from this section of the article. He is writing information as a given instead of exploring the possibility that there are other possibilities, however unimportant or unlikely they view them.

In spite of this, the author does then redeem himself by stating possible ways of gaining experience as a choreographer. This information would be useful to a reader as it would give them ideas as to who to get in to contact with. They explore the ideas rather than saying just one way is the only way; getting specific qualifications such as a Bachelor in Fine Arts or a Masters Degree; gaining experience through following a choreographer in a company you are already established in; choreographing for local amateur productions; choreographing for dance schools and children. These all add up to possibilities for a reader to look in to, the readers current circumstances may push them to one over the other but at least the author is suggesting options.

The rest of the article is adequate. The author is still not explaining or backing up his points, however he does give options. He explains that there are many different environments a choreographer can work in, presenting lots of opportunities for people looking to go in to the profession.

I think this article was a good learning tool for me. I am able to see that even with in a journalistic article you need to back up your points and explore ideas presenting ideas not telling the reader there is only one way when there isn’t. 

Task 6D - Delicious

I have created a delicious account and 'stack'. Still don't quite understand it bout going to look at links other BAPPers use and you never know i may be adding more to my stack!!

http://delicious.com/stacks/view/IYODRz

Emily x

Suvey

Please would you take a minute to complete my survey

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/D8C3P82

It would be greatly appreciated :)

Task 6A

I have contacted a friend, and colleague, who has worked as both a dancer and choreographer. She is currently living in Germany so I though this would be a perfect situation to experiment with interview via email.

I have researched about the best way to approach an email interview and the consensus seems to be keep the questions to a minimum so to the interviewee doesn’t get too overwhelmed. I decided to just ask 5 questions all of which are fairly broad, giving the interviewee the chance to expand on their answer and tell me in their own words their experience.

The questions I posed are:

Where did/do you find choreographing work?

How did you gain the relevant experience in choreography?

Do you still perform? Which do you prefer/why?

Can you tell me how you made the transition from performer to choreographer?

What initially made you think about becoming a choreographer?

What do you think? Too broad? Not hitting the right topics?

Feedback would be great!

Emily J

Inquiry

Does anybody know the time period we have for Module 3?
I am trying to work out my schedule for my plan! any help would be greatly appreciated!

Endings and Beginnings

Today I signed off the carnival Valor after an amazing 7 month contract. It is say to say goodbye to some great new friends but that is the business I suppose!

Now on to something new, sending my cv out to try and get as many auditions/ work experience as possible. Hopefully I will get another contract with carnival and be back on a ship within a few months!

Task 5B

Listed below are the ethical guidelines for Carnival Cruise Lines as set out in the Team Carnival Shipboard Handbook.

1) Environmental Protection

Preserving the marine environment and the pristine waters in which the ship sails. All employees have to work to the company’s Environmental Management System, must report any environmental problems to the department head and identify opportunities to improve environmental programs.

2) Improper Payments and Bribes

Payments to government officials to gain preferential treatment, payments to contractors/suppliers to gain favorable treatment in violation of the law and any transactions that would result in another employee not being able to perform their official duties are all prohibited.

3) Use and Disclosure of Confidential Information

Employees must not disclose any information confidential of privileged learned on the job. Examples of such information are as follows: financial data, Business/development plans, marketing/advertising stratagies, customer lists and unpublished prices, company sales practices, organization chats and salary data, personnel files, social security numbers, medical information and credit card information.

4) Outside Employment

Carnival employees may not gain outside employment if it conflicts with any duties requested of them as a carnival employee.            

These guidelines differ greatly from my assumptions in Task 5A. I was thinking more specifically about my specific job role, whereas, the handbook looks at the ethics of working on a ship in general. I think both are relevant as the ones I have looked in to are also important aspects on ethics within the company as it is more about how we come across to guests as the entertainment department. 

Task 5A – Ethics Within my Place of Work and professional community

Within our society we are always surrounded by ethics, there are then more specific ethical rules we have to follow with in our profession and in our job role.

Within my job as a Dancer on a Cruise ship we have specifies ethical guidelines:

Punctuality

We have to make sure we are 15 mins early to and activity we are required to do. We should be warm and ready to do rehearsals and shows well in advanced.

Professionalism

We follow our dance captain/cruise directors instructions with out question, even if we do not agree with what we are being asked to do. We respect our fellow cast members and keep cast morale up.

Appearance

We must be in the correct uniform for any duties we have to do with neat hair and make up. We are also required to present ourselves well and sick to the guidelines of the ‘Carnival Look Book’. This means we have to wear trousers a collard shirt and closed toe shoes when in guest areas during the day and in the evening we must be in formal wear with dresses of and appropriate length. Name tag must be worn at all times.

Behavior

There is no swearing in guest areas or PDA (personal displays of affection). We need to use the guests names as much as possible and smile and interact with them when in guest areas, even when off duty.

Alcohol

When at work we our alcohol blood levels should be at 0.0 and in our free time they must not exceed 0.08 incase an emergency should arise.

Health and Safety

Know how to organise the guests and keep them calm and safe should an emergency situation arrive. Know where the firefighting equipment is placed in each room. Keep watch for any hazards around the entire ship. If there is an issue either sort it out if possible or call someone to come and sort it out.

A lot of these are specific to ship life, especially the health and safety aspect. However, a lot of them can be cross referenced with other dance jobs on land as well as regular jobs.

Task 4D - Award Title and Rationale

After having a really good conversation with Alan yesterday I have really fine-tuned what I want to get out of my inquiry. We discussed looking at how one would make the transition from performer to choreographer. I plan to talk to established choreographers and find how they went through the process.

I have been thinking about my award title for some time now and looking at what other people have decided on for some inspiration. I know that this course only makes up one third of the degree as our previous training/education counts for a lot so I wanted to make sure I included that in the title too. I was thinking about my award title being:

BA (hons) Professional Practice in Dance Performance and Choreography

I feel that this incorporates what I am doing now as well as what I want to do in the future.

What do you think? Is this too broad?

Feed back would be appreciated :) 

SIG

I have just created a linked in group for my SIG. I chose linked in because it is so easy to use and, yes, no distractions like on Facebook!

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=4343798&trk=anet_ug_hm

I am looking performance and choreography, how can you make the transition between the two roles. I would be interesting to hear from others looking at transitioning between other roles too and what performers want to do when they are no longer able to or want to perform.

Please join if you think we can create a SIG.

Emily x

Task 4A Development

After thinking about the line of inquiry I posted earlier I realized that it was very vast and there were many lines i could look down. If I tried to tackle this how it is I feel that my inquiry would be very vague and i would not really find out anything. To narrow it down i just sat and thought about what is really my passion and how i can develop this in to a line of inquiry: Choreography.

I had originally thought about this but found that i could not come up with any question but mixing it with my ideas about creating my own company i can think of the half way step between performing and running my own company which would be choreographing.


Question about the transition between performer and choreographer:

How easy is to make the transition between performing and choreographing?


Are there any professionals that have already made this step?


How did they go about it?


What skills and experience do I need to gain to become and established choreographer?


How can I go about gaining experience as a choreographer?


What do professional performers think of choreographing, do they like the creativity or do they just think of it as a bunch of steps put together?


Is choreographing a natural step dancer think of after performing? What other professions do performer think of going in to?


Will I have to start by choreographing in the style of some one else to establish my self before being able to put in my own creativity?


Would I have to work as a freelance choreographer? What are the advantages/disadvantages of this?

Questions about choreographing itself:


What skills/techniques are there to help cart the choreographing process?


What styles of dance are easier to choreograph?


Which styles take the most creative input?


How can emotion, themes and ideas be effectively communicated to an audience?


What do audiences think of choreography? do they just see the art of the final piece for do they appreciate the work put in to creating movement?


How can I use aspects of established choreographers works to enhance my own and create my own style?




I would greatly appreciate any feed back on this development. Is this line of inquiry clearer or have a just limited myself again?

Emily

Task 4A

When reading the task reader I had so many ideas for lines of enquiry, thing I want to learn about the industry, about how I can look after myself as a dancer, how I can pass my knowledge on to others in either the form of performance or through teaching and choreographing. I have always been interested in teaching and working with children however this has never been part of my ideal plan, it was always a fall back option. I have seen that many people on the course are working more towards the teaching side and I was struggling to find how I could steer my work to what I initially want to do with my career. As I have said before my ambition is to set up my own contemporary dance company, however, this is looking quite far into my future.

Through looking at Emily Brenchley’s blog and looking back at Task 2D I can now see a line of enquiry that will help towards the managerial side of running a company but will also help my current practice (as a performer).

What skills/experience do I need to gain in order to effectively run a company?

            HR?

            Financing?

            Advtertising?

What are the sociological issues within a company?

How can I start to build up my network in order to gain the support of other professionals to set up my company?

How do the pressures of working in this industry affect a dancer psychologically?

Is the industry too obsessed with image?

How can I keep my health and fitness on point to have a lengthy career?

Are these questions still too broad and are they too irrelevant to my current practice? I would appreciate any feedback and if anyone else is looking in to similar lines of inquiry it would be great to hear from you so with can start to bounce ideas and thoughts off each other as part of a SIG.

Emily  

Task 3C - Current Sources of Information

My current 5 most important sources of information are:

Google

I use both Google search and Google reader a lot. Google search is used mainly to research and find information on personal topics such as finding out information on new choreographers, nutrition, fitness exercises etc as well as helping me with BAPP. Where as I use Google reader purely for BAPP. As I am not able to access the internet a lot Google reader gives me the opportunity to see many posts all on one page even when I am offline (after saving the web page) This has been a great tool for me in the past few months.

You Tube

I use Youtube to research different dance styles, to look at different choreographers and to find inspiration for new choreography for myself. I can easily spend hours on here just watching dance, getting ideas from other people’s works that I can adapt and use techniques in my own.

Facebook

I use Facebook as a tool to collect information from other people, through contacts I know and to find new contacts. A lot of dance companies now have their own Facebook page, this makes it easy to what is going on with them, when they are next performing, auditioning or to see what their current projects are. 

Books/Magazines

I like to use book and magazines to find information as I find it a lot easier to read from a book and often find they can hold more detailed information. Magazines are also very good to keep up to date with what is going on in the dance work and also to see audition listings. I particularly like Dance Europe as I find it the most relevant to what I want to do.

Colleagues

My colleagues are an invaluable source of information. Working with such a vast amount of people from all different cultures there is a lot of information and experiences I can get an insight in to. We also talk a lot about our performance, saying where we went wrong and what we can improve on. This not only helps to clean the show but also develop me as a dancer as I am able to take suggestions of how to improve my style. 

Task 3B - Theories Relating to Networking

I really put off doing this task, I just kept making excuses not to do it. However, I finally knuckled down and read the reader and found that although some of the concepts were difficult to understand sometimes, the theories in it were very interesting. I have learnt that I need to just keep reading even if I don’t fully understand something and don’t get hung up on one sentence that doesn’t make sense to me because more often than not it explains itself further down the page.

Professional networking and affiliation go hand in hand. To have a well established network it goes with out saying that you have to be able to affiliate with a wide range of professionals. The dictionary definition, to affiliate: to attach or unite in terms of fellowship (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/affiliate). This definition tells us that not only do we affiliate in terms of creating professional networks but we start to affiliate or attach ourselves to other people from a very young age. Affiliation is a natural part of life how we affiliate differs across different cultures as well as ones preference and the personality, it is to what extent we affiliate and how we use it to network is how you mould a career. It is not until we leave schooling do we really understand the importance of our established affiliates to help us get on and move up/around the career ladder.

A person can have a number of established networks that may or may not interlink. Personal and professional network often cross due to the fact that professional affiliates can also become close friends. A person may also have groups within their network, for example if one worked within a dance company that group would be a very close sub-network, where as if their next job was with a cruise line there is the opportunity to network with a vast amount of people. These two, what we can call sub-networks merge to create one persons professional network.

Cooperation

The cooperation theory was an easy concept to understand. The use of the game ‘Prisoners Dilemma’ to show how people work I feel was very simple but extremely effective. It shows that in the long run cooperating and working with the other person will reap more benefits even when in the short term, if you win, the benefits look greater. When making the first move in a deal you have to trust that if you do right by the person they will in turn do right by you as pointed out in the game that most human beings will reciprocate what the person before them has done.

Social Constructionism

It took me a while to get my head around this theory, but after reading the section a couple of times it started to make a lot of sense. It is telling us that humans build meaning, it is not just something that appears and has just one level to it, people add meaning so it is continually growing. I think the example given in the reader of the ‘tree’ makes it easy for us to understand the theory so we can apply this logic to any other object, theory, description. When one says think of a tree we do not just think of the object itself we understand that on a simple level a tree is brown and green, then it is made of bark and leaves, then it needs water and sunlight to live, then it’s leaves uses the sunlight to photosynthesise to produce nutrition for the tree to grow, then animals use the tree for food and for their homes. This is just a simple way of showing how many layers humans have constructed to create meaning to a simple thing such as a tree. This then becomes knowledge only when a group of people agrees, through interaction, upon the belief that this meaning is truth. So therefore knowledge is also constructed not created. This brings out the question; without humans would the world have meaning? I don’t know. It is a very similar question to which every one asks; if a tree falls deep in the rain forest and there is no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?

At first I was not sure how this theory was relevant to the topic of networking. However now, upon reading the section again and writing about it, I have come to understand that without networking, communicating with other people there would be no meaning. Knowledge comes from people agreeing upon truth constructed by what humans believe to be meaning, this knowledge could never have happened without interaction between people and therefore networking.

Connectivism

Connectivism is self explanatory in a basic form. It explains how connecting with other people, creating networks and affiliations, helps one to grow as a person, learning from eachother. The gathering of new ideas, building upon other peoples ideas is how new meaning is constructed. This means that the world of meaning is continuously growing and expanding with different schools of thought from such a variety of people, rather than just one person teaching their thoughts.  

“over the last 20 years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, how we learn” (Siemens, G. 2004)

I believe this is very true, especially after researching and learning about web 2.0 in task 1. The internet had made a lot more information accessible to a huge amount of people, the amount of people with that access has increased ten fold in the last 20 years too.  Web 2.0 also enables a vast amount of networking, which has increased how much we learn, with ideas and meanings growing and being continually constructed and reconstructed with new information. Connection with a huge range of people within a veriety of living circumstances, cultures and beliefs though this source

Communities of Practice

We need to learn to use our network/afflilations effectively. There is no point in going to the effort of creating a sound network if you are not going to use your contacts to your advantage. 

Task 3A - Current Networks

I feel that I have the means to a lot of networking; however, I don’t feel I necessarily use them to my advantage as a professional.  I have signed up/got accounts and profiles with a good number of networking sites. These include:

·      Facebook

·      Twitter

·      Linked In

·      Skype

·      Network Dance

·      Dancers Pro

·      Star Now

·      The Stage

I use Facebook, Twitter and Skype for personal use but I don’t really use them to network with other professionals in the industry other than those I have connected with on a friendship level. I did open a second account with Facebook with the intention of using as a professional networking, however I didn’t really keep up with it or use it to find people that I could connect with. I do think this was a good idea so I am going to start utilising it more.

Out of the other web sites I have used, my profile on network dance is the one I update more often. I have found this website a really good tool as you can filter the type of auditions you want to see so it is easier to find the relevant ones. The site gives the opportunity for possible employers to look at your profile which includes your CV and photos. 

Dancers Pro and Star Now I find more difficult to use. Although you are able to create a profile and look at auditions it is very limited without paying the monthly subscription. At the moment I cannot justify paying out for something like that as I am currently in work and out of the country.

I feel more experienced professionals often use personal contacts to network. Finding people through others they have previously worked with or met. I would like to expand my network in this sense. I have only had 2 professional jobs but from this I can now think of people I can talk to that could help me network further. I hadn’t really given thought to what I could do already as I was only thinking that I haven’t had many jobs and so not met many people. However, if I utilise the contacts I already have I will be able to effectively expand my network.

My ideal network would be quite vast with people form different styles of dance, different company’s and agencies. Thinking further down the line of my career it may also be useful to connect with artists as well as choreographers, producers and dancers. To gain this type of network I need to branch out and use contacts I already have to connect with new affiliates.