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are as follows: financial data, Business/development plans, marketing/advertising stratagies, customer lists and unpublished prices, company sales practices, organization chats and salary data, personnel files, social security numbers, medical information and credit card information.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