3D - CRITICAL QUESTIONS AND ISSUES THAT EMERGE

still undergoing surgery

AUDIO VISUAL, Jan did hollywood

Whilst travelling the world I believe visited hollywood, on this particular day i collected plenty of video clips and pictures and again used my mac to create a video. After uploading it to youtube I realised that the sound wouldnt play due to copyright, I am still fiddling my way around as to solving this problem and learning in the process. Here is my link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkb6ZXkPeUQ

3C- SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Before I started this task I had a look and payed attention to what sources other people had used in this task , I noticed that almost everyone had made referance to the internet as one of their main sources of information, this I found very intersting as it shows how much it really helps people and there professional practice including myself. I will start with the Internet as for me I find it the most useful out of all my information sources.

 1. Computers/Internet

As soon as I login I go to the dreaded site that has everyone hooked, facebook ! Not only do I waste hours of my time socialising staying up to date with friends and family from home but I also use groups and applications that inform me of future auditions in the world of dance, Once theses are found I can use the internet to share them with my friends and in return they will do the same for me. With being such a long distance from home I use the internet outside my professional practice to freely talk and see my parents all those miles away on a webcam and speaker.From looking at Jess Hunts internet example I also found she applies the same practice as myself when ordering dance shoes and clothes which can save me money than ordering by post or phone. Thinking about dance clothes I also remembered how as a company we rely on the Internet to stay in touch with the agency who sent us out onto the ship.If we ever get short on tights or need new shoes sent over we inform them over email and they get back to us straight away.When meeting new choreographers I have had many add me on face book or we have exchanged emails, in future situations when I am perhaps looking for direction or guidience in my career I can get in touch with these people that could essentially help or boost my career ! One of the Agencys I am on will inform me monthly with auditions commng up perhaps ones that alot of dancers dont know about and I am able to easily repply back saying whether I will or wont be atteding. Jess Hunt cleverly mentioned how she uses the internet to find certain CDS and I remembered how I use the internet to search, listen and hunt down tracks to use for choreographing, this way I can usually find wonderful tracks by artists I have never heard before and this will inspire me to start creating a dance. Staying on the same subject of music I can then use computer software to cut, edit and trim track I want to use for choreographing for my own specific needs. As computers get better I am given more options to play around with and in overall given a better chance to create my perfect track for my choreography. 

I recently bought myself a new Mac Book Pro as i realise the importance of my laptop in the career that I am in and as i have now been away from home for nearly 4 months, I felt it was a good investment in my money.Whilst experimenting on my laptop I found the movie making softwware and from playing around with it I will at some point make myself a show reel as I have been so impressed with the quality and amount of things you can do with your video clips.Again using a showreel is an important part of my professional practice and If I can do a professional and quality looking one myself then I will have saved myself alot of money. My new Laptop will allow me to successfully do this.

When creating a piece of choreography I sometimes watch clips on you tube to inspire me and to get the ball rolling creating ideas and starting points for my piece. In the Hammond we also did integrated professional studies, the written side of the course. For this we had many set tasks where I used computers to clearly print and display my work and in many of the tasks I used search engines like Google and Wilkipedia to research my work.

Computers and internet are an extremely important part of my career and have helped me to succeed so far in life, it is very exciting for me to think how computers are getting better and how much easier everything is becoming.

1. talking/verbal communication

I feel I started the process of my career from my very first audition at the Hammond school, if I hadn’t have got in and received my scholarship then I wouldn’t be here today. I remember a specific part of that audition that was particularly important for me. This was the interview, by verbally expressing myself through speech and not through dancing I was able to show how eager and excited I was to be attending the audition and was able to express to them how much I wanted to get onto the course.If I had shown the opposite and negative approach then they wouldn’t have perhaps considered me and I could have not got into the school.

Since then from experience with talking with the public through teaching and even waitressing I can confidently approach people. This is especially important when I meet important people that I need to make a good impression with, this may be with teachers, choreographers and even audiences. I agree with Natalie Less who says “Even though you can create a relationship with someone online, it doesn’t compare with the relationship you can create in person”. I agree with this if you’ve met a person and have generally got on well with them ,6 months later  online then they are more likely remember you by remembering what you look like and the conversation you had. Thats why its great to leave a good impression and fantastic social skills will help you. You never know but that particular person may be able to help you in the future maybe in a project you are undertaking. A small blog and picture of yourself on social networking sites such as face book don’t have the same impact and after all what is to say that that person described online is the person that they state to be. Its great to have lots of contacts not just in dance, but friends or people you have met everywhere.

Whilst working aboard the ship I have discovered this for myself. There are many guests that come from all over the world and with many that i have particularly got on well with have we exchanged contact details.If we were to ever visit that specific country they have said that they would be more than happy to give us a tour and in some cases have in fact invited me personally and other cast mates to stay with them. If I was to ever work abroad or visit  a different country this would be extremely useful and could save me allot of money. On board the Silver cloud my cast mates are like my family and they also come from Canada Australia and even london, very handy friends and something to think about when you audition in London all the time!

Teachers and choreographers can give you advice, push you in the right direction and can even recommend you to a company or choreographer they have previously worked for or know in there field. Ultimatley bringing you work! Thats why being socially active with everyone around you can help and has a important part to your professional practice.

3.The stage

When looking for a job I can admit that for me this is a valuable source of information. The most useful part is that the Stage comes in newspaper and as a online website, you can order it monthly to come directly to your door. This is handy as I sometimes forget to check and could miss out on important opportunities. The Stage also informs me about my world of work, keeps me updated and is very interesting to read. I am able to read about new shows that perhaps are coming soon to the West End which I may go and watch, new dancers that are getting noticed and it  also advertises dance schools, colleges and courses that are avaliable, contact numbers are also shown in the stage and it makes it a valuable resource for me to have.When checking out the job opportunities I feel that the stage always has the biggest selection and usually has the biggest jobs around such as west end Musicals, high profile agency’s and big cruise line auditions. A good example of how The stage has benefitted me is the job that I am doing right now, where did I find it? The stage, Jean Ann Ryan Posted a large advertisement in it saying that they would be coming to Pineapple Studios in London to look for dancers for there agency with, that year I was told on board the ship that thirteen thousand people auditioned worldwide to get onto the agency and I am proud to say that i was one of the few to get on. Thanks to The Stage I wouldn’t have successfully received my first job and for that I am grateful

4. TV

I have never really considered this a source of information, but until I think about it I actually realise how much it applies .How many of us dance fanatics simply love to watch flash dance, center stage or dirty dancing. Not only do we enjoy watching these films but we also grab ideas and music for our own pieces. However its not just dancers who watch these films. These days we will often do a number in shows which the audience feel a connection with as they know the number or piece of music. For example how many dance troupes and schools do the classic thriller number ? We do it because we are inspired by the movie and everyone has seen it, therefore it is a brilliant connection between the dancers and the audience. But its not just the movies on the TV that we watch, what about the programes like X factor strictly come dancing and you think you can dance. I often see amazing dance numbers in these as well as programmes like the variety show where I will constantly remind my mother to record the programme or will find myself on the internet spending hours on you tube trying to track the clip or pice of music down so I can use it for myself.From watching these clips on Tv I always remember coming into college the next day and discussing the performance with my fellow colleages and teachers. We found ourselves annalysing what we saw, and discussed what we thought was good and bad and what worked and what didn’t. I still do that today which is great because the things I like will be applied and thrown into my professional practice.

5.Mobile phone

I myself own two phones, they consist of a cheap American phone thatI use in emergencys to phone home, and an English phone which I use when in the uk for texting and ringing.Apart from that I hardly ever use them however from studying peoples blogs such as jessica Hunts and Natalie less I discovered that they use there phones alot to help there professional practice, and I found that this inspired me to maybe get either a blackberry or an iphone when I return home. Why did they inspire me, well they can use them for directions and guidience in an unknown place there have been many times in london where I have struggled to find an audition and places like the embassy where I had an appointment to collect my visa. If I had one of these devices I would have been alot less stressed and would have found these places alot more easily giving me more time. Lots of time is important for when warming up for auditions and for getting a good starting number. Also I could regularly check my emails as it would be on me all the time and again this would mean I would have a better chance of snatching up opportunities and replying to Agents potentially that could offer or mean a job. I feel like I have take something from this last part of the task and found that from looking at other peoples blogs I have found something that I would perhaps benefit from in the future, by buying a good phone device I could maybe extend my job opportunities and give myself more of a chance in succeeding in my professional practice. It is obviously working and helping other students and fellow peers on my course that are in the same professional practice as myself and so I will use this  and see how much more of an advantage I have.

3A- ENQUIRY

Ever since being introduced to a computer in an early age I was straight away introduced to networking sites at school such as bebo and msn  Automatically i grew attatched as I was able to talk to my friends, share information, show my own personality through my page and comment on other peoples photos, stories and comments. As I grew older I moved onto a more mature networking site, probably the most popular social networking site in the world. You know which site I’m talking about because you and most of the population  are attactched on it.........face book, yes even now along with everyone else we all seem rooted to this one and only site which in some cases seems overpowering and addictive to many people. This is the main network I will talk about as I find it facinating at the amount of people who use it, even sometimes the most embarasing of people such as your parents, aunties, teachers and even grandparents! everyone these days is on face book.

Referring to my professional practice, all my friends use networks like myself when we look for jobs. We are able to use search engines such as google and ask jeeves to find jobs and auditions that are coming up. Also we can join online agencies which may be free or can be of monthly charges and login and create accounts for sites that can send you regular and free updates on jobs like “The Stage”. Going back to face book the technology I socially use the most can sometimes help me in the best way. Facebook can suggest companies and agency groups to join on our professional practice that will do the same thing and will send emails and updates on news and any jobs that are coming up soon.I have joined many of these and through face book they will automatically be sent by text to my phone informing me of these new notifications that have been sent to my page. A brilliant technology created by face book.

Facebook does not only keep me informed of important news and opportunities but also can allow me to freely talk to my friends in a live situation. Not only do me and my friends use this to keep in touch but we use to talk to each other sharing important information about auditions that maybe I haven’t seen or maybe to inform my friends of some important ones that I have found coming up soon. This is just like how we would in college before I  graduated where we would all share our information on a white board in our changing room of future auditions coming up. This just shows how close my year can still easily keep on track of things and each other, just like when we were in college where we were standing next to us, face book allows this to happen even though we are miles apart.

Practitioners that I admire such as large agencies like spotlight or Jean Ann Ryan use huge technolgies to keep and store everyone on large computer files. I am with Jean Ann Ryan and when working with the choreographer on the ship  and in America I noticed they also added me on face book, a great professional link to have which face book has allowed me to do, the choreographer herself  also used hotmail and face book to get in touch with the agency back in America to send certain things over onto the ship that she noticed we were short of such as costumes and props.

When reflecting on networks such as Facebook I can see other reasons why people dont just use it socially, companys realise how popular facebook is and so use it for advertising purposes, there are many sites I have joined just for information on something . Also people use it to remember people, for example when one of my peers sadly passed away in college a site on facebook was specially made in honour of him and this was fantastic for all the people who lived so far away to post comments and to reflect on his photos and to share with everyone on how amazing he really was. Even now I can go onto his page and share a thought.

On the bad side of things face book can be used for bullying, again people know how big it is and so can easily distribute nasty comments on peoples pictures or walls as they know how many people can access it and they can easily use it to humiliate or embarass people.

My ideal network would be a networking site such as facebook but for all the dance students, professionals, choreographers and companys, you would be able to enter in your profesional cv and accumulate your own professional profile, you would then be sent updates on the particular areas that your cv/profile attracts and be guided and offered regular news on auditons and new suited to you. This would be brilliant and would save alot of time searching and hunting down auditons and things on the internet and you would have alot more contacts and guidience. If facebook could perhaps organise and arrange specific sections or areas such as dance/drama/finance/sport/beauty to place all the different agencys, companies and auditions in then we would all have abetter chance at finding them all and would maybe get more oportunities.This would be a step closer to my ideal network

3B - THEORIES RELATING TO NETWORKING

Affiliation

This is particularly important to me as a dancer as everyday as I am expected to work around and form “close relatioships” with not just my cast mates but with passengers and other crew members aboard the ship Crisp & Turner explain this theory.They go onto explaining this theory more explaining Affiliation as a social process that in fact “satisfies a psychological need by providing us with a network of support that will help us when we are in need” I can relate to this with my choreographers and teachers as I find it easier to talk to them about career issues and problems i may have if I can socially and comfortably approach them, the more, this is the same with friends and family, the more i affiliate with them the more I can rely on them and as Crisp & Turner say I can “satisfy a psychological need” with that being bringing happiness,support,love,help anxiety or confidence.

A principle of Affiliation that I find interesting is that of homeostatis (O’Connor & Rosenblood, 1996).They both state that our need for affiliation may differ within each of us such as the introverts and extroverts of people and also even be controlled by ‘psychological determinants and individual and cultural differences between individuals’.(Hofstede 1980) This is completely true, as I socialise around the ships I find that in culture The Americans always seem very bubbly, and alot louder in general and there culture of affilition seems to stand out alot,when teaching children you get some quieter children and some louder children, its important to socially connect to these quieter children maybe a little more so that they can start the process of affiliation themselves.

I do agree that for performers professional networking and an extension of innate capacity and need to affiliate is a main key for survival as professionals. It backs up the saying my mother always used to tell me ‘If you dont ask you dont get’. For example If I as working with an amazing,high status and powerful choreographer, By affiliating,socialising,analysing ,asking questions and “picking there brains’ I am in fact learning important tools and qualities that may help me as a professional, from past experience I have been guided from teachers and people I have affiliated well with and they have in fact recommended me and led me into a sucessful starting career.Examples include auditioning for certain jobs and dance schools and referances for jobs and interviews.We can attract these individuals that we wish to benefit from by generally being polite,well behaved and showing interest in that person or there subject to ‘satisfies a psychological need’of ourselves. But then if we are affiliating with them what ‘psychological need’ do they have in order to wanting to affiliate back with us.Well, my view on this is that I think these established practitioners were once in our posistions in there younger lives and so we share this psychological need to strive forward in life to make it as a professional, they want to see us succeed and can feel great showing a young person the way forward as It reminds them how they made it in life just as You would feel great showing someone maybe a certificate or medal you won but twice as important! This is why we did many workshops in my training at The Hammond where our teachers would bring establised practitioners into our enviroment as our teachers could see that we would benefit and could maybe satisfy a psychological need.

constructionism

For this part of the reader i found myself really thinking deeply about the source of everthing in the world and how it became to be found and constructed by us as human beings.I almost had to strip everything away and think of things from the roots, another way of thinking this was like thinking of the ingredients before making the cake.(Humphrey 1993, p 17) made me understand constructionism alot more clearly by describing things in the world like volcanoes and trees, before we lived on earth none of these had names or meaning but untill we actually came and studied all these worldly things we contructed them gave them meanings,explanations name and images that come to our mind when we say any object like cat , weed, cup, scarf. We as humans constucted them and can now represent them in our mind. This is related in my professional practice with steps like a jazz parder ball ray and a demi plie, and can even relate to experiences I understand more now from doing them. For example before I started auditioning I was told it would be hard but it was only untill i started doing them myself did i construct an audition properly and witnessed it for myself.The most exciting thing is that there are still things to be constructed for example when we look up at night we see stars but is there more to it than we think ? Has anyone studied ever single star, they must be different types so surely they should have different names and constructions,this is the same about beyond the unniverse, what is beyond that, until someone studys it and finds out there will be no knowledge and name for whatever is out there! 

Connectivism

This is a process of learning using the internet and digital technologys, a good example of it is me right now using web 2.0 and the readers to learn about this topic, if I didnt have blogspace you tube and emailing to speak to my tutor I wouldnt be learning anything. This also goes into my professional practice as well by using the internet to find jobs auditions and workshops which in return will help me learn and suceed in my career. Connectism is the way forward and in my oppinion is better than books or papers, it makes things quicker, easier and more exciting to look at, Going back to my GCSES and for alot of children in general I used to revise over the internet using online test papers and study programmes like bitesize. I also used a digital programme to revise for my theory test in my driving. I personally feel that I am better in using these techniques rarther than the traditional way of learning such as book reading or sitting in a class room for an hour listenning to a teacher, however everyone is different, for most people the traditional method  is getting overlooked and I feel that this course is a perfect example of how fabulous connectivism can be.

Driscoll (2000) defines learning as  “a persisting change in human performance or performance potential...[which] must come about as a result of the learner’s experience and interaction with the world”. This I can relate to as  myself I learn from experience, being so young I am experiencing new things everyday  that i havent perhaps come across before but then does that mean old people  dont learn as much as perhaps as I would in a day? This I find very interesting.Currently i write this as I am going throught the panama canal locks, this amazing system I had only heard about but had never experienced it before, going back to Discrolls theory i sit here watching the gates close and see how the system works for myself. Everything seems so much clearer to me and i am able to understand the amazing creation made by man.

I went on further reading how Driscoll (2000, p14‐17) explores some of the complexities of defining learning.The one I found particularly interesting was the content of our knowledge – Is knowledge actually knowable? Is it directly knowable through human experience? I would love to look into this more, something I find hard to believe like what is the surface of mars made of ? from researching this  I found that no human being had ever walked on mars however a whole library of information still came up about the planet. So how do we actually know if its correct ?

Information is always being updated and is rapidly growing, its exciting for me as a young person to know that there is aways so much more to learn in any subject even in my professional practice and how this will never ever change even when i reach an old age.

The reader showed me that learning doesn’t have to just be about school,books and numbers it can be an experience or even a decision, a process I never really thought about with this topic, if I was to make a wrong decision and experience the bad side of something I would learn something from that so as next time i learn to take the correct descison.

Communities of Practice

This is a process we use to learn through each other. The reader quotes “Members of a community of practice come together because of mutual interest and generate a shared experience of engagement in the community of practice. This can produce technical knowledge about a discipline, but brings much greater benefits, allowing the community of practice to develop its own identity and symbolism of what it is to be a member of that specific community of practice”. A good example of this in my professional practice was in my school dance troupe many years ago. We would come together at lunchtimes and share our ideas and choreography movements as a group,slowly forming the branches of a dance number, we would learn from each other the different steps and ideas and as a whole we formed a sucesesful and engaging dance troupe and family that many other pupils in my school wanted to be part of. I can apply Wenger’s three identified dimensions into practice with my example 

• What it is about – A dance troupe understood and continually renegotiated by its current new and inspiring members
• How it functions ‐ A fantastic relationship and engagement  between everyone that binded members together into a social connection through enjoyment through dancing
• entity - What capability it has produced – A fantastic repetoire of numbers and productions shared to the school and community 
  
  

2D-INQUIRY

For me my daily practice on a ship doesn’t just include the role playing a dancer, it includes playing an approachable, sociable and outgoing crew member towards our guests. This is a big role of my job something I didn’t maybe expect to be so important and so this makes me very enthusiastic to find out more about my non performer role. You could almost say my second job aboard the Silver cloud.

As I am around the guests, a lot of the time it is especially important to me that they are happy and are having a fantastic time on holiday, this is because it makes my job easier and a lot more enjoyable to spend a lot of my free time around cheerful guests. Therefore it makes me sad when I see guests unhappy as it makes them unapproachable for me when I come to socialising and means I have to deal with passengers asking me questions about the service or problems and issues that they are not happy with.

Throughout the day we have to duties, our company manager organises them so we all get a fair share of duties. I get annoyed when certain cast mates of mine sometimes don’t perhaps turn up for duties as it makes us dancers look bad as a whole team and again can upset guests causing bad reports and ratings cards which guests fill out, marking there views on there holiday experience. Rating cards are marked on the service and general well being of staff, if the entertainer’s marks aren’t above a certain percentage then we are all taken to one side and told we are to do better. That is why if one person slacks then the whole team is knocked down.

I do admire our cruise director Judy, She was once a performer herself and appreciates how hard we have all trained for our job, a lot of the crew members aboard generally dislike entertainers and dancers as they think we just do the shows at night, slack and do a few duties in the day, this makes me angry as they have no idea about everything that happens behind the curtains.  A good example of this is the three years training in college I have recently graduated from, a factor of life that every working dancer has had to complete, and more importantly the most stressful 4 week rehearsal process I have ever undertaken in Miami Florida, here we leant 4 shows in 4 weeks before straight away flying to board the ship. Judy has a little reference to all this and when we lost our male and female singer she literally saved us and flew into our shows to perform a few song numbers in our missing gaps. She found a way to work around these problems and helped in the sadness to pick us all up when our cast mates left the ship.

Once learning and naturally feeling the steps it is a pleasure to perform the shows at night and call it my job. Going back to my second job of being more so around the guests I feel there is nothing better than meeting people and then knowing someone in the audience the following night. Just as you feel a connection in the audience if your parents were watching you gets the same sort of feeling with there being someone you know watching you. Our ball room couple are both an extremely sociable pair someone who I also admire. They seem to know a lot of guests from the ships as they keep coming back to silver seas on there holidays. They often bump into guests they have already met before and I feel that they also love performing to guests in the audience that they know or are close to as they will often go for drinks after the shows with them or will be invited to have dinner with them on non show nights.

When our male and female singer got fired the main question I had was why? Even when I found that the songs weren’t suited to there voices and there dancing wasn’t quite up to standard I still asked why. Why did they not see this in the beginning and choose to sack them nearly 3 months into a contract, after a show. Why did they send them home and then decide to revert back to the original choreography and teach us all new steps. Why has this contract been ridiculously stressful, is it me? Are all contracts like this I wasn’t sure. However by talking to my cast I Soon discovered the answer was no, this contract was a little special however they all taught me to see it in a different light. Usually I would panic and stress but they taught me to laugh, this contact will make me stronger, if I can handle this I can handle anything and the next contract….. Well it should be a piece of cake. I admire my cats for helping me and for acting professional and getting through the problems; they helped lead me through the storm and noticed that I was the youngest, less experienced and probably a little anxious. The whole upside down contract experience has prompted many questions. However to answer them I feel that experience is the key. Being fresh out of college I haven’t known how to deal with the problems but by following, copying and being guided by other professionals who are more experienced than me has given me more ideas on how to tackle the situation and in conclusion make me a better professional.

1C AUDIO VISUAL

Here is my first attempt of creating a video using my Mac. From looking at other peoples videos I decided to use the ship to my benefit and used it as a theme to link my ideas to create a video that was a little different. After carefully brainstorming what I wanted in my video I carefully put everything together and searched the net for a sea related tune, you can here this in the song words. I was extremely pleased with my end result and will definitely use the video tool again in future to display my adventures, and memories of my first job and cruise experience, something I hope to post to my blog in the near future. I hope you enjoy my video here is my YouTube link :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CctCXQnlvS0

2C- REFLECTIVE THEORY

What is reflection? Being a little unsure I started  looked at other peoples blogs on this task, in doing so I realised I was blatantly doing the theory itself by looking at other examples and learning by looking at other peoples ideas and experiencing there blogs for myself!

I have never really thought about reflection however from studying the reader I now understand the reason behind my teachers screaming at the class to just go to an audition for an experience, or go watch this company that no one had heard of as an experience or go work with that choreographer for the experience. Most of time everyone including myself were completely unaware in our profession why, and most of the time didn’t take a lot of notice thinking that these things were inappropriate, waste of money and a lot of the time unnecessary! However now I have really started to understand how important it actually was to follow my teachers advice as I could have experienced these new areas and would have learnt something in return, maybe that wouldn’t interest me but could help me in the future to understand different things and make parts in my professional practice seem a lot clearer. I thought of all this after reading about John Dewey, it made everything a lot clearer to me  and I found it easier to find the above examples that back up his theory, Dewey  says by having an experience we are able to find a meaning ourselves.

Reflection doesn’t just apply in dance it applies in everything and I can show a good example of this. In my new job aboard the Silver Cloud there are many new parts to it which I was unsure upon. In the general daily duties we do on board a few include shuffleboard, ping pong, water volley board, shuffleboard, library, and Bingo. In my first few weeks I didn’t have a clue on how they should be approached or carried out. However we had two options, we were given a sheet of paper with the instructions on to how to do the duty, you could say a definition just like graham mc fees definition of a Bachelor. Or it was up to us to come along to the activity to take part and watch how it was done by our dance captain who had done the duties many a time before. I decided to go along by reading the paper version however struggled with a few things weren’t perhaps as clearly highlighted to me on paper so when I did the duty I was unsure and unconfident. However when I went along to watch and actively join in with the duty I easily watched listened and experienced it myself and therefore learnt ten times faster than I did reading the paper, just like how graham Mc Fee explains how experiences creates meanings with the bachelor example.

I then went on to Read about the work of  David Kolb, I noticed The learning cycle  was particularly interesting to look at and study and I soon enough found Examples that apply to me and my professional practice. Soon enough I managed to link the cycle into a show situation and how I learn and make the show better, here is my example using Kolbs theory:

	Definition	Example
Concrete Experience	Doing/having an experience	Doing a show
Reflection Observation	Reviewing/reflecting on the experience	Notes on our performance after the show
Abstract Conceptualisation	Concluding/learning from the experience	Talking with our dance captain about what we will work on and what can be better
Active Experimentation	Planning/trying out what you have learnt	Working on corrections, weak areas and mistakes made the next day

This cycle also applied a lot when I trained in college. For example when learning the steps in class I always used to find that writing steps down and simultaneously going over everything I had learnt in class, helped me learn and remember the routines. This tells me that I would have been put in the Active Experimentation category, which is planning and trying out what you have learnt. However it is interesting to see that a lot of my friends in college were a lot different to me as they enter Kolb’s cycle in different areas and learn differently. One friend I know would struggle learning a step but as soon as a teacher demonstrated or one of us showed her she was able to tackle the step a lot easier, this shows she would enter the cycle at Reflection Observation, Reviewing and reflecting on the experience of someone teaching her the step. When training in Miami I had to remember so many routines and sequences’ in such a short space of time, I would go home at night and like I said earlier would simultaneously go over the same steps over and over again, I used Twyla Tharp’s idea of muscle memory a lot, this was because even though I was tired and struggled using my brain to remember the steps I would rely on my muscles to do it for me, and it worked! That night I would become frustrated with myself for not remembering steps and going to bed confused and flustered however the next day I had practiced it so much the night before my muscles had remembered the steps and my brain was more awake and so everything came back to me and I was able to learn something new. By the end of my training I relied a lot on this tactic and sometimes found I trusted my body to remember things a lot more than my brain.

            I also took time into looking at Gardner’s ideas of multiple intelligences; straight away the two words that jumped out to me were ‘spacial’ and ‘Musical’. Quite often I find when learning a number I have to think of a map in my head of where I move in the particular number and where about I am on stage. For example in one of the shows we do a Mary poppins number to step in time, we do a hop step which stops in certain directions, for me to remember this step I had to think of my spacial awareness with the people around me,  and ‘visual’ things, a key feature of VAK  which gadner  mentions to  help me learn. For example doing the first hop step facing the clock and the second facing the speakers. I use mind pictures to imagine where I am onstage to learn, this VAK feature is especially useful when blocking and teching numbers where I can straight away use my minds imagery to know where I am onstage. Another multiple intelligence word of gardners is ‘Musical’, sometimes I get stuck where steps come in on the music but if I listen carefully I usually find pointers that hint to me where certain steps come in and I can find musical phrases that help me learn where to come in stop, start, repeat and exit the stage. Again a handy tool I used a lot when we lit a number on the stage where we stopped and started the number at different points in the music and had to find which part we were at in the routine.

 Using my Interpersonal intelligence I am able to understand what is going on around me by understanding how and why people are responding, for example in a studio example when lining up for corner work if I am unsure I will carefully watch the first few people that are travelling across the room, that way I can understand the choreography or speed of the step I am about to approach and can respond in the correct manner. In doing the choreography across the room I can then link in Donald Schons idea of Reflection in action, he goes onto saying how reflection can happen as you are in the middle of doing it, that way you respond and learn quickly, So as I travel across the room from the corner I can maybe correct myself in a movement I am doing wrong so that the next time I go to do it I will do it right.

            Just from reading everyone’s different views and ways of Reflection I feel I have gained and learnt so much from the course reader. I feel I am really starting to look at things with a different approach and am trying to learn in different ways, some that make me feel uncomfortable that maybe I am not used to doing however is interesting for me to look at the result and questioning myself, did I learn from that experience and how could I approach this differently. My journal has also taken on the new approach becoming something I enjoy writing now as I am using different ways of writing it, visually and by what I now choose to write about. And finally my in my professional practice, now 3 months into my contract we are finally starting to settle into the routines however I am eager to make what I learnt better so am now using all these ideas to look at my performance and style differently to make myself a better dancer on stage.

2B REFLECTIVE WRITING, JOURNAL WRITING EXPERIENCE

Tuesday 17^th of November

 I’ve chosen this day as a lot went on bringing up mixed emotions and a lot of heavy feelings into the day, something I feel I could reflect well on.

This was the day our Male singer got fired so it wasn’t really your average day; this was the day we lost someone that our cast grew extremely close to from meeting and training with in from day one. I won’t go on discuss more about the event but more about the whole experience I learnt from writing about this particular day.

            Firstly I was surprised about how much detail I went into, when I started thinking about things a lot deeper everything came to me much more easily and I found myself having to draw to a close as I realised how many different views and emotions that were involved in that particular day. Putting everything into words opened me to see different views, for example how I felt, my cast and the singer himself. I was able to imagine myself in his positions and could understand more of his emotions. This technique I would definitely use again, it showed me a different approach to my journal that wasn’t just about me. Normally I thought most diaries were about me myself and I but by imagining that particular day through somebody else’s eyes I feel I gained something from the whole experience and felt more for my castmate. I will use this now in my practice when analysing my days to make things better, for example learning a new routine and imagining seeing it through a member of the audiences eyes, this will make me a better performer and from this I can create more of what I feel the audience would like to see from me as a dancer. Another great example is when eventually I am able to teach, hopefully I can also imagine and see things clearer through a students eyes and this will help me understand more about helping them and substantially become a better teacher. Seeing things through our singers eyes made me appreciate my job and reminded me of the competiveness of our career and how easy it is to loose our job, it made more motivated and overall made me more determined, I want to now work harder so that I never get close to that situation, my diary entry even scared me to imagine myself in the singers position, something I thought a diary wouldn’t have the control to do!

            I also feel that I was able to sum up my day a lot more clearly through this experience and it highlighted and pointed out the parts which were most important to me these were the parts that I wrote about the most. I could see the parts that were good and bad for example how comforting we were as a cast and how the day really brought out everyone’s feelings, not just mine. I saw everybody in a good light, there was so much kindness and supportiveness amongst us as well as the sadness, blame and sorry. The few words I just used then were another technique I used, with these words I created a spider diagram of words that summed up my day, and this showed me a diary doesn’t just have to be a block of heavy writing, something else I learnt from my journal writing experience. A lot of the words and points I relate to I realised weren’t just about me and the people around me but were about the whole atmosphere of the day. By thinking about the bad points which I normally wouldn’t focus on I could look at the situation more and if it were to happen again I’m sure I would be a lot better handling the situation.

 I found that the techniques I had never used before with journal writing were the most useful and I will use these from now on with my diary entry’s, they allowed me to approach things differently in future, imagine things in different eyes and taught me a lot about myself and other people.

            After all the people in life who stand out and look at things differently eg. Painters, scientists and inventors are usually the most wisest and successful living people on our planet!

2A REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

If this task had been given to me last year I would have straight away thought that writing and keeping a journal would generally have the same flow and pattern running along it. The pattern would have consisted of getting up, training eating training and going to bed, this was the same old routine for the past three years of my life apart from the weekend days which usually consisted of a Friday night party session and the remaining hours wisely used up for sleeping ! Generally a boring task I would have to focus on working harder to make things come alive and seem clearer.

            However since the 24^th of September I was flown to Miami America to start a whole new chapter of my life and to start my career working as a performer. Ever since then every day has been a learning curve with fresh new activities, schedules and a different way of life, something I wasn’t used to. Therefore to write a journal has been a pleasure to do and has opened me up to look at the amount of new exciting things I am doing making me explore and look into things a lot deeper than I normally would. This is because I have new ideas and things to play with. Everyday is different allowing me to reflect more, understand and look at my life in a different eye.

            The task also quotes to maybe “include images, either drawn or photographs, or videos etc. that examine your professional identity” Travelling around and seeing the world on a ship” wait for it ….. Phone, sunglasses, money and CAMERA! my main essentials in my life at the moment!!! Constantly looking like a mad tourist with a cameral in my hands all the time, therefore it shouldn’t be too hard for me to post some pictures on flicker of my whereabouts and adventures I shall include in my journal.

1D IMAGES

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55565848@N02/show/with/5154670228
Here is the link to a selection of pictures of my work at the Hammond, I have also included a few modelling pictures and also a headshot, hope you find them of some interest
Jan

1B PROFESSIONAL COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES

For this task I really had to knuckle down and think about everything as I was reading the course reader. I also looked closely at the document on how to start with web 2.0 and this also helped me understand more on the professional communication technologies reader. The more I read, the more I understood about the general subject and how all these technologies will help me and many other students on the course.

 One of the features of web 2.0 I can relate to and show as a perfect example is ‘Network as platform’ what am I doing right now? Right now I am typing away on my laptop sat on a ship in the middle of the Caribbean!! Web 2.0 allows me to confidently and easily access information and stay in contact with everyone on my course from any where on the planet. This is done by web 2 technologies such as facebook, blogs Gmail, delicious and you tube. Most of which I had never heard of before I joined the course. For all this I had to create new logins and users for and at the time I didn’t have a clue how much they would benefit me until now. The most exciting part is that even though no one on my course has met me they will meet me and discover my personality through my work. Through web 2.0, I am the creator and the way I display myself on a screen will be looked at by others, this can be in a good way or bad way. Reading Grubers theory about web 2.0 like facebook being ‘intelligent’ has also reminded me about us using web 2.0 intelligently as users. For example even though your not personally speaking out to everyone you can still portray the wrong impression through your blog and work so it is always important to think carefully in what you are writing just like how you would think before you speak. For example with facebook the reader states ‘If you don’t add friends, then the platform can’t help you. If you are rude or inconsiderate, the platform works to shut you down’. This would be a little similar with us, if you don’t add information no one can comment and if you were rude or offensive you would no longer be on the course.  

 ‘Find your online identity and voice; be constructive, positive where appropriate and supportive when necessary’ I agree with this and think it is especially important to be noticed, stand out opening new topics and looking at things deeper with a different eye, this will create conversations, comments and will engage others through the technologies. Again Hamilton backs up my theory and ‘notes that participation is a function’. I want people to paint a picture of me in there mind by using my blog, discovering and reading my information and not analysing my display picture!

 Whilst reading I came across the following point, ‘Web 2.0 usually allows users to interact with each other, make formal and informal connections and share. “The word share especially stood out as by sharing information everyone benefits, the more information we share to each other the more we will all get out of the course and the more we will learn. I also found the word ‘community’, both these words show how closely together everybody works even though we may be so spread around the world yet all still doing the same course. This is amazing and gives another good example of how fantastic web 2.0 is. I also love the way everyone can discuss ideas through words and not so much speech. A lot of people struggle to find confidence to discuss and express themselves with tasks and questions asked and say if we were to have the same discussion in a room in public there would probably be a lot less input and originality behind ideas and topics. We can think more before we discuss things on our blogs and sometimes this works in a better way with a higher percentage of people getting more out of it.

If your getting more out of it let me know, I would be more than happy to receive any comments or discussions on my thoughts of any of the above, Thank you.

1A PROFESSIONAL PROFILE

My name is Jan Mayer, I am 5ft 7 with dark green eyes and long copper brown hair. I have recently just made my professional debut into the world of work. In 2007 I received a scholarship for the Hammond School Chester and graduated in July 2010 receiving a level 6 National diploma in professional Dance validated by Trinity London. I am currently working for Jean Ann Ryan aboard a six star ship, The Silver cloud also promoting my diploma into a degree by studying The BA Honours course in Professional practice

 I discovered many qualities as I trained at the Hammond, already entering very competitive from my disco competitions and becoming an extremely hard working and committed person. Extra written work alongside the three year course made me very organised and independent allowing me to schedule and work around any free time I had. Another perfect example of this is undertaking my degree course onboard the ship, juggling and organising my time around my job. I entered my training with perhaps a lot less experience than others on certain techniques and styles, however this made me eager on wanting to learn more and perfect everything I was taught. Working on a ship has also made me a lot more sociable and outgoing as a lot of the duties include socialising with guests, this generally means being polite and showing a confident mannerism about you as you walk around the ship.

Major Highlights for me so far would be some of the many workshops we took part in at the Hammond, these included dancers from cats and ballerina Viviane Durante, Master Irek Moukhamedov.Working with disabled children in workshops and classes. Modelling and performing on fashion shows and photo shoots, and of course the most rewarding and satisfying part of my job at the moment, seeing the world, travelling, meeting all nationalities of people and now performing and developing as a professional artist.

Working alongside Eric Carpenter, Jane Elliot, David Needham and many others I have developed a broad spectrum of skills, these include, ballet, pointe commercial jazz, fosse, luigi , Contempory Cunningham and graham. I also trained and studied Spanish, modern, street, tap, basic acrobatics and double work.

I have always been involved with performances all my life, Major Productions have included a touring company in my final year where we performed at numerous places in the United Kingdom and also in Germany directed by Alison Hughes. Yearly productions at the Hammond directed by Sarah Durante and my first paid role working as a dancer for Jean Ann Ryan and performing on Silver seas six star cruises.

Reference available from head of dance, The Hammond Mrs Sarah Durrante (01244305353).