Task 2d Inquiry

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?
Back when I was training and just after I graduated, nothing motivated me more than a good, sweaty jazz class. One class in particular that I used to love doing at Pineapple was Linda's jazz class. Each time I went was a completely different style dependent on the music. I always left wanting to download that style of music and would spend hours youtubing either that particular style of dance, or even the music and others interpretation of the style of music. I would love going to an audition and be able to relate the style I had maybe practised in her class, and head in there feeling confident and thorough in knowledge of the style.
Jazz and Tap were definatly what I would define as my enthusaism for dance, I could always keep up with a ballet class but I would never class myself as a ballerina. Tap is a style I have always been passionate about, and always wanting to push myself further, gaining higher qualifications throughout college, and upon graduating, taking part in tap workshops and constantly aiming to improve.


What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?
There are a few things that make me angry and upset about the world of showbiz. One major one being 'fisrt impressions'. and by that I dont mean in the same sense I would for a 'normal' job interview where you have to be polite and bubbly and really show your personality in the first few minutes. The point I'm trying to make is that in audition situation's you can be completely written off in the panel's mind before you have even twitched your first move or sang the first word of your song. It makes me sad that if someone does not fit the typical mold of the role they are going for, they wouldn't even be considered. One audition in particular that stands out for me, was for a cruise ship company. The first thing we all had to do was a double pirouette to both sides, starting and finishing in the position of your choice. They went along the line, one at a time. I remember there was a strikingly beautiful blonde leggy girl next to me, who I think only managed a single pirouette on both sides,and stumbled out of both. When it got to my turn, I remember surprising myself at how well I executed both of my turns (even to the left!!) and finished them on balance with a big smile on my face. I guess you can see where my point is heading- that was as far as my audition got, however the beautiful girl next to me got through to the next round of the audition. I feel we have to have a very thick skin in this industry. Of course in that particular situation, the company could have only been on the look out for blondes to replace a similar person, as it is in most auditions. I'm not oblivious to the world I chose to train in, and the needs of directors and choreographers, I just don't always like it! I have now stopped auditioning and try to focus on my teaching instead, and the first interview I went for felt so surreal to have to worry more about what I was going to say, rather than what I would wear or how to do my hair!
I really admire celebrities such as Beyonce and Jennifer Lopez who have always proclaimed to never fit 'society's mold' and be happy in their own skin, and lets face it, become hugely successful! I remember watching a documentary on on Jennifer Lopez throughout her dance training, it was pointed out to her a lot that she was much curvier than the other dancers on her course and she said"You know what, I love my butt, I think it looks great and I will use it to my advantage" and she certainly did! I think its definitely important for dancers to be fit and healthy, which I always tried my best to be, but what I also learnt over the couple years of auditioning, was what type of audition I was best suited to. I quickly realised that Cruise ships were not for me. Which when I look back on things, I regret not trying to make more of a go of, as I think the actual dance style would have been a massive strength of mine.

What do you love about what you do?Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?
What I used to love about performing was just that-performing. Theres nothing like it! I remember being 13 years old and doing my first amateur dramatic performance, the high I felt afterwards was a feeling I will never forget. Every single performance I did, I would feel that high afterwards, and couldn't wait to do the next show. Again, to mention Beyonce i watched this video on youtube of her interview after her Glastonbury performance. Its definately an overwhelming feeling that can be described by any performer, no matter their level!
The other side of what I now do and what I love about it is just simply working with children. I especially appreciated my time volunteering at a special needs nursery, working with them in their general day and also interacting with them through dance and movement. Seeing how differently each child reacted to the different style of music, brought things to my attention that I would never have noticed before, had I not been teaching this particular class, the expression 'you never stop learning' is so true, and I love that it is just a continuous circle throughout life!

What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it, interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions to you?
At the minute, I am struggling to understand how my 5 years of professional training will secure a future for myself. I suppose it helps that I have an idea of how I would like to build a career,and I am taking the necessary steps to keep moving forward with it. Since moving back home and deciding to take a different path to performing, I have avoided using the term 'dance teacher' and alternatively opted for a gymnastics coach with a heavy dance background. I feel much more comfortable describing myself as a gym coach, than a professional dancer- I still do not understand why. I can only presume that it stems back to my lack of self confidence and worrying about people's judgements (1st impressions and all!).
I have a great friend of mine called Nicola. We have known each other since we were maybe 12 years old. We went to the same local dance school and have stayed great friends ever since. We went in different directions with our career paths but I seem to now be struggling behind trying to catch up to where she is, and she has done everything in her power to give me great advice, offer her help and knowledge and generally be a great friend to have around. Nicola did 2 years professional training at SLP, then decided the competitiveness of auditions was not where she wanted to be, so she then transferred on to a university course, which led on to a PGCE course which she passed with flying colour's. After gaining her NQT (newly qualified teacher) she then went to New York to study The Martha Graham technique. Since returning, she is now a heavily sought after freelance dance teacher, as well as securing a job as a dance teacher at a prestigious high school. She has always known how she wanted to turn her training into a career and build that security around her. I truly admire her for gaining her understanding early on, and pursuing it to where she is today.

Reflective Writing

I recently read Jessica's blog post, and her intial thoughts totally mirrored exactly how I feel about this kind of task! I have no idea what it is, wether it be the many hours we spent in college writing up all lessons we had done that day or week, and all the 'corrections' from each class.....Or it could be that I'm extremely apprehensive about studying myself  and reflecting on it. Which as I write that, I know shouldn't be the case, but I think one of my major weaknesses as a dancer and performer, was that I really did not enjoy critiquing myself. I would much rather dance in front of a teacher or a colleague, or even a complete stranger, and have them tell me how I can improve, than stand in front of a mirror  and really watch myself, or even worse, record it and watch myself back. I think this comes from insecurities brought about at college over weight and appearance, which of course is a massive part of any performers career, but I'm hoping some of you can agree with me when I say, it definitely knocked my confidence, and still does now in 'normal' life and how people perceive me.

Which leads on to this task. Now I am not performing anymore and concentrating more on my progression as a teacher, I decided to reflect on my teaching classes rather than the dance classes I now do for fun! So it has taken me a little longer to reflect using the different ways to do so, on some occasions I doubled up and tried to reflect on the one class in two different ways to see if I got anything different out of it.


Describing the class was the easy part for me, and I found myself using this after most classes as a kind of summary for myself, to then use that to reflect on in the different ways. I enjoyed questioning myself (Initial reflection) with the examples given in the handbook. 'What did you feel about it? what were you thinking?' etc. I find it much easier to answer direct questions like this and expand on the answers to lead me to my reflection and how to progress from there!

Now, I LOVE making lists!! In fact I have just wrote a list of what I still need to do for this module and then prioritise what needs to be done in what order. I make a list of jobs I need to around the house, a list of bills that need to be paid, I love writing my Christmas card list........however, I couldnt really see how making a list of words used to describe my class or day could help me reflect. I thought making a list of further things I may want or need to research was useful, such as a specific choreographer or technique, but I felt that these were more reminders than a useful reflection tool.

Evaluating the class was quite the norm for me as a teacher. I will generally reflect upon a class using this tool- what went well? what didnt go well? what the kids enjoyed? wether any of them had come to me with requests or concerns about what they want to do next time? This is, and always has been, successful for me as I like to think about how the class went and what we can do with that next class.

I found I couldn't really get into drawing graphs and Charts, I would generally associate this method with numbers and statistics and wasnt sure how to make it into a reflective tool.  However, something I did try was  an exercise showed to us on our first campus session taken by Paula. Where we drew a 'head' and we prioritised what was most important to us at that particular moment, ie that first campus session 'BAPP' was in a huge bubble right at the front of my 'head', with other bubbles around it. This was a fun way to reflect on my day, I also tried doing a few a day to record what was at the forefront of my mind at different parts of the day!

I took on the Another View as if I were being watched by a peer who I worked with. Looking at how I interacted with the children from an outside point, and what else I might have included in the class where possible.

Overall, I didn't realise how much I actually use some of these tools subconsciously, however not necessarily writing them all down, which is something I will definitely be taking away from this task and continuing to use the different ways of reflection dependent on the situation!

Video

I hope this counts as a video.....?? I had a nosy at a few others before embarking on this task, and was petrified at the thought of  speaking into the camera, and also I have never made a video of anything before in my life!!

So, that said, here is my first attempt at making a clip!! Video Clip

Please be kind guys, but would love any help or constructive criticism you want to throw my way?! Also, I struggled to get music behind it! I did it on windows movie maker, and when I clicked add music, it brought up my itunes but wouldnt let me add! does anyone know of any other way to add music to it?

Thanks in advance :-)

Photo's

So, I've battling for a good 3 hours now with these photo's. What I managed to do quite easily was set up both a flickr  account and a photobucket account. However, what I really wanted to do was upload a slideshow as a gadget at the side of my blogs-this I struggled with!!
Therefore, I've had to settle with a few still pictures on my profile, and a link to an album on Photobucket!

Hope you enjoy :-)

p.s if anyone can shed any light as to how I make a slideshow from either of the accounts mentioned above, please can you let me know how?  I've tried using the slideshow gadget and my username, but that doesnt seem to bring anything up?

Task 1b

I touched on this subject as a normal post, but seeing how others have made it into a document to link to, I thought I would expand slightly with my opinions.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AR4UFdwcDWQ06PBAuowPen6yURArGSQpoqGw0c0ynvE/edit?hl=en_US

Personal Profile- Take 2

I really appreciated the comments on this piece, and took them on board. Sarah, I dont know how I missed my spelling mistake as spell checker was on, so as soon as it went on to google docs, it was all red, highlighting for me to mend! and i kept the "all of these experiences in" but took what you said on board, and adapted the sentance before to explain a little as to what they were!

I looked at Liams comments and used his "What I realized" idea which I feel summarizes the whole piece and leads people on to the next chapter of my life (BAPP) smoothly.

So, thanks so much for your kind comments, here my next and hopefully complete draft!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bX4o8YT8JXroIzI-RCBQq4brzRmm7TJg0RqixCaZJ0Q/edit?hl=en_US

CV -Take 2

Ok, so after taking some comments on board, I've tried to re work this. Ive added in a little profile where I summarize some of my personal attributes. I added a summary of my education and training to include my GCSE's (although I didn't give details on what grades I got for what subject-does anyone think this matters?) I then also dropped 'Choreographers worked with' on Aicha's advise.

Did anyone else struggle to fit everything they wanted to point out onto one page? Do we think its important to try and fit it all on one, or is it ok to spread neatly over 2, and get all previous work in there?

Here's the link, again, thanks for your thoughts and comments in advance!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k_l9wSEvrAoRbvfkAlnSLxEddFBy3CdUr_0uZNem3Kk/edit?hl=en_US

Apologies....!

Hi everyone!!
As much as I have been keeping on top of what everyone has been writing on their blogs thanks to GoogleReader, I can only apologize for my lack of commenting! I cant really make excuses as I'm sure the majority of students here have full time jobs, I'm just finding it hard to juggle my full time job, with my voluntary teaching and getting stuck into this!!!

Ive given myself a full day to today and Monday to catch up on all work as well as commenting and getting in touch with you all! So, apologies if you all end up with millions of comments over different blogs! I'm experimenting with different ways to keep on top of things.

Are people finding it easier doing smaller bits daily (or as often as possible?)  for example, commenting on colleagues blogs? Or are some people doing it this way of leaving yourselves full days to focus on it all?

I am hoping that it will be something I settle into, and get into a routine of doing!

Personal Profile

From an early age, dance was a huge influence in all that I did. As a keen gymnast, dance and performance were a big part of my training. Then came the time in my early teens where a choice had to be made. I chose dance. After years of training at a dance school, and fully supported by my family, I went to college to study for a BTec National Certificate.  From here, I was able to explore the different paths towards professional training and was granted a place at The Hammond School in Chester.

After a long, hard, exhausting, thrilling, challenging (I could go on!!) 3 years at The Hammond, I graduated with a distinction in my National Diploma in Professional Dance. I then moved from Chester to London where I lived for two years and I worked on and off the stage, at The London Palladium. Some of the work was paid, some voluntary.

I have certainly had my eyes opened to the ups and downs in the ‘world of showbiz’ and I have learnt to look ahead to try to make, and stabilise, a future for myself. I have recently gained experience working in a school to see how I feel about using the teaching skills from gymnastics in a school setting.  All of these experiences have given me a great advantage in life and I feel it has given me a good grounding.  I enjoy attending the theatre, reading, socialising and exercising.  I am a person who enjoys life and realise’s the hard work it takes to continue to do so. From this, I am now furthering my qualifications and studying for a degree, hoping it will be the stepping stone needed to continue in my path towards full time teaching.  I would like to think that I will be using my training and further education to help and advise others. I feel I am dedicated and committed to making my own pathway, starting with gaining a degree. I am hard working and motivated enough to make a stable living for myself and my future, through gaining this qualification. 

CV

I currently have 2 different CV's saved on my laptop. One was for my auditions, made up solely of previous performing experience and training and all things image related that our teachers say we have to have on there! My other one, was one I made after moving home from London and applying for teaching assistant jobs in primary Schools. I was therefore unsure which one to post on my blog.

In the end, I went with a mixture of both, looking at it as my life now and how I want to proceed, which is in the teaching industry rather than the performing industry.
However, Id really appreciate some feedback on whether you think all info in there is necessary or too much?
Thanks in advance!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1k_l9wSEvrAoRbvfkAlnSLxEddFBy3CdUr_0uZNem3Kk/edit?hl=en_US

Getting started!!

So, Ive been pretty busy today! I set myself some time to really get my head down and get started with what needs to be done for the module. Starting with getting completely up to date with all the web 2.0 tools.
I, probably like most others on here, was surprised to learn how much I already knew about these tools, without actually realising that, thats what web 2.0 was!!?

Im completely hooked on social network sites Facebook and Twitter! When living in London, I found Facebook especially, to be a great source for finding out about auditions, or even different shows that were on locally for me to go and see for research purposes. I think its fair to say that everyones familiar with Wikipedia, however, Im probably going to slightly embarass myself here by admitting that I had no idea that it was a resource that members of the public could add their own research to!! I find that fascinating that such a large tool has grown because of peoples input from all over the world, coming from all walks of life!

While I cant help but agree with some points made by a few people on here about the use of web 2.0 (Liam writes his view so well I found myself nodding along in agreement!) and how it may be destructive for the future, I also cant help but marvel at the revolutionary of it all! I mean, none of us would be here, doing this course and gaining the degree without it, right? Dont get me wrong, the idea of people using technology to 'lead' our lives seems absurd. I love nothing more than catching up with friends and family over a good old lunch!! But where would the world be without these tools and resources??

I find myself going round and round in circles thinking about this. There are so many pro's weighed out by an equal amount of con's that Im finding it difficult to summarize my opinion................
I think, for me, having already lived a life where these sites and tools are made available so easily to us (phones/laptops) I could never imagine a life without them!!

Induction Day

So I'm now officially a student again!! I cant begin to tell you all how nervous I was about starting this course. I was still slightly unsure what to expect when venturing down to London to meet other students, and of course the advisers. I needn't have worried, I was the 1st one there and Paula immediately made me feel welcome and at ease (think this goes to show I'm much more used to scary dance teachers 1st impression meetings, being judged solely on your image!!) It continued to get easier throughout the day as more students came in and we introduced ourselves. I got the feeling that I wasn't on my own with the nervousness! I also got to have a surprise catch up with a friend of mine Aicha, who I trained with at Hammond!

As the day progressed, I continued to make notes (my memory isn't great if I don't write it down first!) and get my head around whats needed for the modules!!
Before the induction day, I think my biggest worry was writing essay after essay, now its most definitely getting used to blogging and uploading photos and what not!
I wouldn't say I was useless with a computer, I'd say I was just about average. But when it comes to fixing photos and changing sizes of them to upload etc, I think that's going to take a little bit of practice!!

I am, however, really looking forward to 'blogging'. Initially, I thought, "what will I write about?" however this one seems to be flowing nicely, I just hope I can keep them interesting and critical for the duration of the course!
The day was finished in a bit of rush yesterday, with myself along with a few others, having to leave sharpish to catch a train. I managed to get a few peoples emails, and I'm sure for the ones I didn't get, we'll all be in contact through blogging and what have you. Again, what started as an extremely nerve wracking day, progressed and ended on a massive high and I'm really looking forward to getting things started and getting to know everyone!