Task 4b) Special Interest Groups

Having a look around your blogs and primary inquiry questions I have already found a fair few of you who have similar topic interests to me. Firstly though, Laura Houghton has mentioned a good way of communicating in our SIG groups would be via facebook as it's easy to have group discussions on specific topics:
- The link to my profile is https://www.facebook.com/emma.price.5815 so if my ideas on possible lines of inquiry are similar to yours or interest you please feel free to add me. 
- I have also added the 'Labels' widget which makes those of you looking for specific themes easier to find as each of my posts will have specified subject tags.

Reading Gabrielle's posts I can see the health and fitness theme is similar to that of my own thinking. Asking what does it take for a dancer to be fit and healthy physically and mentally and how do you keep a balance of strengthening muscles yet staying lean. All these are questions I have asked myself throughout my training and career & I find a lot of information about sports related fitness programmes whereas less that are specified to dance. My boyfriend is a professional footballer & the amount of time and money spent on injury prevention and rehabilitation programmes in a professional football club compared to most professional dance companies is astounding. Obviously football has a lot more money to spend than the arts however even just the importance stressed in their education on nutrition & daily gym training/workouts compared to in dance is huge. It means they get into eating/sleeping/training routines from a young age that they then maintain throughout their career. My routines have often changed due to me testing things as quite honestly I was never thoroughly educated in this side of my profession.

Kim has asked questions that involve running her own dance school: 
"Is repetition in teaching a dance routine the best method to get the students to learn it quickly?" By nature of professional life, you are often put in things last minute and here we are given DVDs to watch if the choreography is already in the company rep. Some find this easier than others and linking back to Module 1 theories on learning I think each employee/student should be able to learn in a way which works best for them. Guaranteed in a large company this is more difficult due to time however if an employee is given options of a DVD, another colleague/staff member or the bible/benesh notation to learn from they can each choose and therefore enhance their learning and performance and actually save time in the long run.
"How can I get enthusiastic about choreography without music being my inspiration?" When planning a production for a school/company a lot of inspiration is needed and sometimes hard to come by. I often find films, literature and tv documentaries can give me ideas. Also articles on specific subjects help me with themes for choreography. Managing a production involves collaboration with designers, musicians, dancers etc so maybe exploration of other's spoken ideas could help your own? Especially if you're working towards the same vision.


In Melanie's post she's talked about the management of children and although I am currently not engaging in teaching, I found a lot of the points in the article she posted linked well with my own ideas on the management of a company. After all, aren't we all really just big kids at heart?:

• "8. Offer positive feedback at every opportunity. Children respond well to positive feedback...You’ll definitely get more mileage out of saying something positive (“beautiful arms, Suzie” “that’s a high jump, Becca!”) than overstating negatives. Try to be specific. “Good job” doesn’t have much power all on its own so really keep your eyes open for specific things that are being done properly."

I think the idea of creating a positive energy in a school (or in my case a workplace) is vital to the development and happiness of both employers and employees. Negative energy reduces morale and people's willingness to do their best.

• "11. Assign objectives that heighten anticipation. If the same skills are done the same way each week, the children are bound to get bored...you can still give the kids creative objective that will increase their anticipation toward participating." 

This point made me think about the hunger of employees in a dance company and the need for new projects and repertoire to keep them interested and pushing to achieve new things. Adults too can easily get bored.

These are just a few of the blogs I have come across that help my own thinking. I am wary a lot of your ideas are specified to teaching children/students and although due to my current work, my ideas are based more on professionals, I find this helpful. I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts and comments on my slightly different take to somewhat similar subjects.

Task 4a) Inquiry Questions

So despite being a little delayed I am back blogging BAPP style. Having already read some of your blogs and questions for your inquiries it is nice to know it is not just me that is not entirely sure of my specific subject for inquiry just yet. After coming up with quite a few ideas in 'Task 2d' I narrowed my interests down and found there are two areas that I am keen to explore therefore have decided to come up with questions for both and see where my thoughts take me.

The first of these areas is the health and fitness side to becoming a professional dancer and factors from personal work ‘outside of the studio’ that go into becoming a professional and maintaining your body and mindset throughout a professional career.

• Is it necessary to do extra personal work eg. Gym?
• What work should you/shouldn’t you do outside of the studio?
• How can you maintain weight during differing workloads?
• Are we educated enough on such aspects?
• Where can we gain specific information for dancers?
• How do we maintain a mental stability in such a high-pressure career?

The second possible line for my inquiry is that of management. As stated in a couple of my blogs from Module 1 I am a good organiser and exploring the management side of both a professional dance company and it's new productions is something that interests me.

• What does putting on a new production involve?
• Is collaboration between departments necessary?
• What are the most effective ways of professionally communicating between colleagues?
• Is promotion for productions important? How can we develop it?
• How can we keep employers & employees happy?
• Should there be more measuring of growth within a company?
• How can we make accurate selling estimates?

These are all just my (very!) initial thoughts and ideas so feel free to comment. I would appreciate your thoughts on them too. Happy blogging again everyone! x