Presentation and Journey Reflection

As I'm unable to make the presentation days at the campus next week I did my oral presentation over skype a few days ago therefore I wanted to share a few things with you all to round up what I have learnt over this course. Throughout the course I have found visual learning to help me the most as I find I remember things and understand them more clearly when they are interesting to look at. So firstly here is the enlarged mind map which shows the main subject findings of my inquiry:

You can see I colour co-ordinated them to help visually. The following colours link with my four inquiry questions:
"What do show directors believe the purpose/function of a dance show is?"
"What do show directors believe their role is in relation to the dance production?" 
"How does the process of directing a dance show begin?"
"What are the key steps to creating a dance production?"

Along with this I wanted to share with you the things I have learnt that help me as a professional:

• Understanding the importance of beliefs and implementing them into the work.
• Dancer-director relationship is improved when there is an understanding of the ideas/rationale behind the actions.
• Understanding the vision behind the production can improve performance.
• Communication is important.
• Taking initiative in trying new choreographic approaches during rehearsals can help the creative process.
• Being aware that there are different versions of the truth and embracing these.
• Question and analyse work situations to seek new insights - create a second head to stand back from the situation and question what is usually assumed to be "truth".
• To test the assumptions implicit in my practice.

In my presentation I was questioned on my choice of the word 'director' and not 'choreographer'. Firstly both of my interviewees have the official job title of 'director' of these productions within my workplace hence why I used this term. They have the responsibility and final say for everything in the shows - including aspects such as lighting, costumes and scenery. To me and my own practice I know the term choreographer to be specifically related to the creating movement discipline. Adesola pointed out that a choreographer is usually not implicit to just movement especially in present time although in my theatre 'director' is how they are known. As my theatre's first language is not english either there are translation differences too. 

I was also questioned on the relation between beliefs and behaviours. "Are they not the same thing?". My inquiry aim was to explore what the beliefs were to try and understand the reason for specific actions - as a dancer we are given movement to dance to but aren't always necessarily told where this idea came from or why this movement? The same with the methods director's use. I found literature in my inquiry that stated beliefs and ideas are very closely linked to behaviours. I didn't explore this in huge depth as had so much to cover in my inquiry. I believe they are not always the same thing. For example looking at the dancers beliefs and actions - sometimes you are taught something and you just do it even if your own beliefs and ideas are different. Adesola's said this was applicable to a dance student. I agree that this is the transition between being a dance student and becoming a dance professional- being able to 'think' as as well as just 'do'.

I have really enjoyed my learning journey on this BAPP course and I feel it has already helped me in my own professional practice. I feel I have acquired knowledge that will also be very beneficial to my future practice and have found more pathways to acquiring further knowledge later if I choose to do so. The future is exciting. 

Final Artefact

Following on from my last blog I wanted to share with you my final artefact as it encompasses so much of what I have learnt in a slightly more compact way than the 6000 word critical review! I hope you enjoy reading it and can take something from it that may help your own practice:

Artefact

As our deadline is approaching I am focusing most of my attention on the artefact. My inquiry is looking into the creative process of a dance production and so I decided to create an academic poster to highlight the key points that I discovered and that I think would be of interest and benefit to others. I want to highlight that this poster is not an advert, but something from which people can learn from.

I chose this topic because as a dancer I have had a lot of involvement in the creation of new productions but from only one perspective. I wanted to gain insight on the directors' thoughts and actions because this is a role I possibly look to do in my future career.

Because of this I had some difficulty deciding on my target audience as I do not claim to be an expert in this domain. I simply wanted to share with people what I had learnt during this process to hopefully aid my audience's own practices too. Creating an academic poster for my own workplace may have raised slight ethical concern as although the directors I interviewed gave consent for me to use their quotes, this did not include referencing their names. It would be easy for my colleagues to work out who these quotes were from.

I finally came to the decision to aim this poster at those of you also on the BAPP course and other people within dance looking for more information in this domain. For example this may include dance school teachers wanting to put on their own school productions.

I am now onto the final stages of my artefact - the design. I feel I have the right content but although I am one form of artist, I am am far from a design artist. I am currently using powerpoint which has been good but formatting the background isn't so great. I wondered is there a better platform than powerpoint to do this on?

I'd be very grateful for any ideas you all have.

Review of Interviewing Process

Now my interviews are complete. I have all the relevant data and I actually really enjoyed the process. Going back to my last post prior to the interviews, I found this structure was suitable. However, during my 1st interview I felt the director was quite taken aback by my first question 'What do you believe a ballet show is for?' He really had to think about this and I found that such a big question to begin with put him out of his comfort zone. Having the feedback from Bernie on my last blog and the use of the article she posted I decided to start my second interview with a less complex question that focused more on the director's background. This better as it helped the interviewee seem more at ease to begin with.I really enjoyed the conversational approach as it made the whole process less formal and therefore I was able to gather more information.

The second interviewee was extremely busy and was not able to have a face to face interview with me in the end. He suggested I pre - record the interview questions and when he had time he would reply in the same manner. I was slightly dubious to that this would work well but after consulting with my SIG we agreed that it would be more effective than a rushed fact to face interview.
It was! And he really went into depth on the themes I had asked him to discuss which was very beneficial. He also sounded quite relaxed - again a lot more than in a rushed face to face interview was likely to be.

What is 'entertainment'?

So amidst interviewing and researching into practitioners beliefs on the purpose of creating a production the work entertainment came up numerous times. It led me to thinking what actually is entertainment? People enjoy different things when the watch a show correct? So what is it people refer to when they talk about entertainment?

One piece of literature separated entertainment into 2 parts involving enjoyment which is often associated closely with amusement or comedic entertainment and appreciation which is usually linked with thought provoking entertainment. (Oliver and Bartsch, 2011) To put this into context a romantic comedy film may elicit enjoyment but not necessarily appreciation whereas a circus act sawing a woman in half may generate appreciation but not necessarily enjoyment.

To me personally I am entertained by a production that evokes an emotional reaction regardless of the specific emotion it reacts. I find the entertainment that does this to be the most memorable. I'd be interested to learn your views on what you believe entertainment is and what are you most entertained by in dance production? x