Task 2D Inquiry

I will start by considering the following things to find my themes/inquiry.
Music is my motivation in choreography and creativity in general. It inspires a lot of people, but for different things and in different ways.

Music is what makes me enthusiastic and the way it makes me feel to which I then go on to using it for my art=choreography. Whenever I hear a song that I really like, on the radio or in a shop or a website, I use the application; Shazam on my phone to find out what the song is and whom it is by. I then go on to researching more songs by this person to see if the song was just a fluke or one of many great songs that can influence my choreography. I found an album by Emmy Rossum a few years ago from hearing a clip of one of her songs called Slow me down on a random website (see YouTube clip). The song hit me instantly and I knew I wanted to choreograph to it. I went on to YouTube to find out whether the album was worth buying or whether it was the only good song on the album, and luckily it wasn't. Here is the link on Amazon where you can hear the clips of the songs, they are very unique: http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Out-Emmy-Rossum/dp/B000W7Y1LK Let me know what you think as I'm quite curious of other peoples' view of this rather fascinating album. I know that we are all different and have different incentives.

I admire my family very much. My mother and brother both have the same ways of thinking as I do. I often watch my mother searching for a piece of music she can use with her orchestra that is either unique, touching or dramatic. It is harder for her as classical music isn't played everywhere you go in society, so she really has to work hard to find something that strikes her attention, but when she finds one, it really is a good piece. Her orchestra stands out in the concerts. She loves her job even if most of the time it stresses her out. My brother, who is also a music and performing arts teacher, uses music as an influence for his school performances. I've been to his shows and they truly are unforgettable, and I promise that I'm not being biased. I hear parents' comment on how clever the performances were and how it'll be hard to beat the next year.

The things that make me sad and angry are how the performing arts business can be incredibly artificial. I think the thing that is very relevant to this is auditions. We have all been there. We walk into an audition and we notice the fake atmosphere all around. We also notice that the casting director has already pointed out who they want before the audition even begins. It's incredibly annoying and heartbreaking at the same time. We walk into an audition expecting to be judged on our performance and technique, yet even though this is what is stated by the casting director, we know deep down that it's all about image. The performing arts can be an incredibly harsh environment, but I think it's what makes most performers so strong when it comes to accepting criticism. These kind of auditions we can live with as we know that it is all about image, and it's obvious that they know exactly what they are looking for, and on that day, we just don't have the image that they want. As well as auditions, the artificial aura is everywhere from Television to Magazines. It's such a shame how 'mirage like' auditions are and how people get famous through lies and just knowing certain people. I am not a fan of shows that have terrible actors/actresses and are improvised. They just come across as very unbelievable. I admire Zooey Deschanel from New Girl. She said; "..If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of Performing arts." http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zooeydesch418384.html

 

 From that quote I get the impression that she is a realistic person, and I'm very sure she wouldn't do any show that wasn't comfortable such as these unrealistic, improvised TV shows. She inspires me because she is so normal and seems to take the fake performing arts world in her stride and carries on. I too don't always fit in to the performing arts world which is another reason why I greatly esteem her. I think it's why I strayed away from the performing side and have gone towards teaching. Teaching in schools and clubs is a lot more unpretentious and I want to inspire children to perform in a different way by being more down to earth. I've always wanted to teach anyway, but I always expected to teach dance with a more professional group of people rather than near beginners. It's the false atmosphere of stereotypical professionals that changed my mind on whom I wanted to teach. Deschanel stays clear of the stuff that is too dramatic and that makes her unhappy, and so do I.

Within teaching and choreography I can express my tacit knowledge and I can watch my efforts come to a remarkable achievement. I love these things in what I do, expressing my imagination through dance and teaching it, then seeing how it ends. I love to see the children improve and start realizing their own goals. Teaching is fulfilling (which is a lot more than I can say for my job in retail). I want to be an inspiration in dance choreography and how I go about it through music. I do believe that to perform or choreograph well, you must love every aspect of it; the music, how it makes you feel, how the movements flow, the expression, how it can captivate the viewers etc. Michael Jackson has been my inspiration since I was five years old. His music is captivating to me and his dancing is wonderful. It's not hard to see how much he enjoyed his dancing and his music. His choreography was brilliant, how every movement was like a side-kick to the different parts of the music and how the movements linked together so well. Check out his routine at the MTV Awards. This wouldn't have worked half as well without music.

 

His expression was so moving and you can feel the passion that he has for his work. So many people would have loved to work along side him, performing his genius work. I for one would have exulted in it! Just like he did, I want to share my passion. He will continue to be my inspiration even though his journey in this life came to an end.

There are many things that I don't understand like how choreographers can choreograph without music as inspiration. I'd love to swap minds with another choreographer for the day to see how they get inspired without music. To be honest, it isn't only music that can inspire me, it can be films too or books that I've read or even a painting which can spark an idea. But at the end of it all, I still turn to music as my top motivation. Perhaps I can try choreographing without music and just go with my initial idea? I know that I will find it incredibly hard to do so, but it could surprise me on how much I might enjoy it. Without giving it a go, I guess I would carry on being quite small minded on the matter. Both my Brother and I love to be creative, and we both share the same views on this. He says that our way of choreography can captivate most people whereas some other ways of choreography can only attract the odd number of people. I think if you have a very visual mind, and enjoy art (as in paintings or structures) the type of choreography that employs mainly shapes and designs will attract you the most. Whereas if you enjoy sounds and visual at the same time, the way in which I and many others choreograph will attract you more. It's so hard to say this with real assurance because I'm only going on what I believe. Perhaps I've got it right? Below is a video of some choreography without music.

 

When I'm deciding an appropriate response, I've always gone with approaches that have worked best for me in the past. With dance colleagues there's a lot more physical contact than there is in for example an office job or retail. It's weird to think that in different professions there are different, so-called appropriate ways to act with fellow colleagues. I couldn't say for sure if having innocent physical contact in the performing arts is right or wrong, it just seems okay. I've never been told or heard anybody else be told that it is weird or wrong, I think it's just generally a more comfortable environment for most in the performing arts profession. 

Of course in the world of teaching, things are a lot more strict when it comes to responses and especially physical contact with students. This is something that has obviously changed dramatically over the years in education due to terrible events that have occurred. Employment in the teaching world has naturally become more strict too. Here is an example of why discipline in schools has changed. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-13292351

When it comes to disciplinary responses, in society I expect a high percentage of people that 'kick off' over some very unnecessary  things. My approach in any situation is to stay calm. Every time that I've kept calm in any situation, the outcome is always a decent one. If I feel somebody is trying to give me a bad day just because they are, I keep smiling, and their efforts to try and put me down seem to decline.

I am very new to world of teaching, and I only teach on Saturdays but there will be so many questions that will occur, and I will learn the answers for the questions as I go along. My Mother has been a Primary school teacher and has been teaching the Violin to four to sixteen year old's for many years now. She has told me many times that 'Learning to be a good teacher comes in time. Some methods work for others in the way they teach a subject and how they discipline the students. By all means try out these methods for yourself, but in the end you'll figure out the best methods for you and most of them will just come from experience.'  

So after considering all of these things for my inquiry there are naturally many questions that occur such as:

• How do bad choreographers seem to succeed?
• Why does the performing arts industry urge professionals to be pretentious?
• What other things are there that inspire choreography?
• What websites are there that could give more music ideas that suit my approach to choreography?
• What events have occurred that makes the act of discipline so weak nowadays in schools?
• Why is physical contact not as disciplined in the performing arts?

I'm definitely skeptical about my personal sense of appropriate behaviour. How I handle my students? My fellow teachers? Customers in retail? If I were to reflect back on my lessons, I do not touch the students in any way, but I do have more contact with my co-worker such as; a pat on the back or a tap on the shoulder. Is this okay? With customers in retail, I do not touch them, but some of them seem to think that it's fine to pat me on the back as a thank you. I think this is definitely inappropriate but there is not a lot you can do. Luckily retail isn't something I want to succeed in.

I seem to talk about music, teaching and choreography the most. My ideas definitely come from these themes. I think about using illusions as a part of choreography. I can research different illusion objects and gadgets or even magicians and try to merge them into my way of choreography. I also think about Rock music. I haven't seen many dances that are performed to rock music. I love soft rock and some classic rock hits and they seem to get me up on my feet more than some pop songs. I have many friends who love dance and are into rock music and I'd love to attempt a dance routine to a song by Nickelback; When we stand together. It has quite a funky beat and I can visualize a powerful troupe dance to it.

I know that the deeper I go into this course the more ideas will emerge.
This is something I will reflect back on later in the course.

'Keeeeep Blogging' 

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zooeydesch418384.html#GbQUPBUwOsHqMe4c.99

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zooeydesch418384.html#GbQUPBUwOsHqMe4c.99

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zooeydesch418384.html#GbQUPBUwOsHqMe4c.99

I'm into sincerity in music and sincerity in art. If it doesn't feel true, I don't want to do it. Things that are too dramatic scare me. I think that's why I don't always fit into the world of performing arts.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/z/zooeydesch418384.html#GbQUPBUwOsHqMe4c.99

Task 2C Reflective Theory

This task has been very profound and I've spent a lot of time preparing. I've benefited greatly from doing so, and now I have a lot more understanding on Reflective Practice.

Firstly I like how Donald Schön describes Reflective Practice as; "..a dialogue of thinking and doing through which I become more skillful" (Schön, 1983 The Reflective Practitioner, p31). It narrates remarkably how I think and see reflection as in distinction to my uses of reflective practice in my work. I have many times watched videos of myself dancing and singing, and have been really struck on how awful parts of my voice sounded and have been extra critical on my dance technique and performance, hence, I go on to making myself look and sound better, improving on everything that I've seen and heard. I then video myself again, and go on to noticing different things that I weren't so aware of before, therefore rising the fact that I've fixed the parts that I noticed originally. My 'doing' and 'thinking'; reflecting back with a visual tool, has made me become more skillful in my dance technique, singing technique, performance and constructive critical thinking. In my possible future career in classroom teaching I will have to use 'Lesson planning'. This will be a tool for reflective practice. I believe that keeping a journal will be incredibly useful for any type of teaching, including my teaching position now, which I am now getting into.

Being a beginner in teaching, reflective practice is very necessary to building up my skills through mistakes and successes: "The successive portions of the reflective thought grow out of one another and support one another...each phase is a step from something to something.." (John Dewey, What is thought? 1910) Dewey sees reflective thought as a stream or flow. This applies to all of my reflective thinking and practice in my career. I experience a mistake; I correct it. I experience a success; I build on it. I build onto the success too far of which turns into a mistake; I correct it. I see a mistake; I correct it. It goes on and on. "Until the artist is satisfied in perception with what he is doing, he continues shaping and reshaping" (Dewey, Art as experience, 1934 p51) I cannot rest until I get my performance right, my singing right, my dancing technique up to standards or my skills in being a successful teacher.
"..Do something, think about what you did, come to conclusions about what you did and plan to try again." (Kolb, 1984) Referring to this, David Kolb came up with; Kolb's learning cycle.

I always enter the cycle at Doing/Having an experience. The learning cycle is what I use as kind of a template in my journal. It's become integrated in my mind now and I no longer need to look at it as my guide, although I have it there just in case my mind goes astray. The cycle will be a very constructive tool to refer to in my career in teaching. With lesson planning, I can use Kolb's cycle to be at my aide, and it will also be useful in my thoughts and actions during teaching which will be a form of reflection-in-action introduced by Schön in 1987. (refer to Reader 2, p7) Even in my performing, Kolb's learning cycle has been existent; when I worked in Israel, I had to perform in a very long skirt, and during the first lot of performances it would always make me trip up. I knew that I had to do something about it, so I firstly reflected on in, concluded from it and planned out what I'd learned or thought of doing. Therefore the result was me grabbing my skirt at certain points in the dance of which I remember my skirt being the most troublesome, and it worked well. I also added to this by tightening the skirt around my waist so that it wouldn't decline downwards so much. It is incredible how Kolb has made sense of a lot of things when it comes to learning. I've always just use the phrase 'you learn from your mistakes'. Well now I can use 'you learn from your mistakes and successes'. This knowledge has always been there subconsciously, somewhat, but it's become a fully conscious matter in my mind.

As a dance and music teacher I have had to use many tools, such as Cubase to cut and crop music and Itunes and Youtube to get music ideas. I think when using Cubase there isn't a lot of reflection going on as I know exactly how to use it, although, I remember there had been a bit of reflection at the start to remember where I got certain effects from and where I get different tools. Having a very musical family, thus having a very musical ear, cutting the music into the best places is very easy for me and the cuts always sound smooth.This relates to the psychologist Howard Gardners' belief in Multiple intelligences: Verbal linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Bodily-kinaesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal etc (refer to Reader 2, p6). I believe to be mainly Musical. I think I hold a few of the other intelligences too such as Bodily-kinaesthetic, Logical and Interpersonal, but I'm strongest in Musicality.
I believe that Gardner's theory is true to me and I'm sure to most people, but there are people who disagree with Gardner's theory such as Nathan Brody. He says that Gardners' "..list of intelligences is arbitrary," but I personally find it, as a non-psychologist, true, and even if Gardners theory is somewhat arbitruary to other psychologists, it makes sense to a lot of non-psychometric people like me. It's far from just being a belief such as religion, of which you relate to in more of an emotional way, this theory just makes sense. I'm definitely not linguistic. My intelligence is within my head. I am very much a person of 'tacit knowledge'. I am a very deep thinker, which I think in turn plays a part in why I am quite logical. I do try to use Jenifer Moon and Karen Osterman's views on the importance of turning tacit knowledge into verbal in some way. I try using metaphors a lot to try to get the right image to a person I may be trying to explain my tacit knowledge to. But even with that, there's a sort of resistance between the verbal and tacit knowledge and it becomes so difficult to attempt a swap over.  "..we can know more than we can tell." (Polanyi, The tacit dimension, 1966 p4)
Twyla Tharp in The creative habit by Tharp and Reiter (refer to Reader 2, p11) talked about muscle memory and how it wouldn't be exactly impossible to turn movements into verbal, but once you start to learn something within your muscle memory (tacit knowledge) and then you are told the movements verbally, you'd start being very skeptical of your own knowledge of the dance. Like I've said about having a kinaesthetic and musical intelligence, as well as being a deep thinker and being non-linguistic, being told my dance routine step by step I would forget the whole thing, because then I'd be thinking too much about the dance instead of relying on what I've always relied on; the music, that helps me to remember certain steps, direction and flow. I can't verbally tell you how, it's partly an emotion, and it then becomes just muscle memory linked to the sounds that I know tacitly.
I can remember dances from when I was seven years old. If a piece of music comes onto the radio or pops into my head, my body just connects and remembers. I had to learn eight shows in two months for my job with P&O Cruises. I went home every night and listened to the music once over and then tried to remember the steps. When I went to bed I would go over the songs in my head and connect as many steps as possible. Then, the next day, I knew nearly the whole thing and better than some of the others who did the same thing as me. This also proves what Gardner says about having multiple intelligences. I was definitely more musical than my other dancing colleagues, therefore they relied more on muscle memory and what they had written down. We all possess different multiple intelligences and my colleagues all possessed some different ones to me.
"Noticing is about being aware of what is happening around us." (David Boud, Reflection in anticipation of events, 2001) Being aware of what is happening around me is something I am quite good at. I can notice when I've said or done something that urges a series of events around me. Sometimes it's bad and sometimes it's good. I learn from all the things that conclude in a bad event and I stop and think before I speak and I try to make things right. That is something I have learned through reflection. It also refers to when I've been in a dance troupe routine and I've regrettably ended up heading the wrong direction. If I hadn't noticed the other dancers going the other direction, I would have completely messed up the routine. I had to think quickly to make it less noticeable that I had made a mistake. This relates strongly to Reflection-in-action: "Reflection-in-action describes the process of working with noticing and intervening to interpret events and the effects of one's interventions."(Boud, Reflection in anticipation of events, 2001) I have had to use this method a lot and it's become quite natural, particularly in performing. Many times has my mind gone blank whilst performing and I've had to intervene by thinking up some other steps until my mind snaps back into action. As a dancer and choreographer, improvisation is something that's been improved over time, due to these mistakes. Like I mentioned earlier, reflection-in-action will be used in my future teaching career. If something isn't working to my lesson plan or if a type of discipline isn't effective, I would have to quickly notice these things and adapt accordingly to rectify the situation and therefore improve on my teaching skills. Reflection-on-action will be just as effective in my teaching career with the use of a journal; like I quoted earlier. I think that I'm stronger in reflection-in-action right now, but I know that in time my journal writing will improve, by keeping in mind of all the people that I've mentioned and what they've said. My offline reflection, resembling reflection-on-action by Robert Kottcamp (refer to Reader 2, p8) needs much development but I'm definitely progressing already.

Task 2B Journal writing experience

After trying out all of the suggestions given on different writing styles and ways of thinking and reflecting, I have only adopted one more into what I originally did which was just using the Kolb's learning cycle as a base to write out my thoughts. I do believe that I enter on the 'having a concrete experience', so what I believe is the beginning of the cycle.
So, which one did I adopt? I adopted 'Another view'. I really enjoyed writing this way as it made me think as another person looking at me in my day. It made me more critical about myself (which already I am my own best teacher,) so this style advances my skills on this. It really helped me reflect better and made me point out parts of my day which I probably wouldn't have wanted to write down, mainly because I wouldn't have thought of them quite as important as perhaps another person would. It gives more depth in my reflective writing and definitely helps me a lot more.
In my original way of writing my journal I use a bit of 'Description', 'Evaluation' and 'What if?' anyway, so I don't feel comfortable just using these methods by themselves, I always merge them all, as it benefits me and my reflection greater than by themselves. This is how my mind works within my journal:

• I write about what I did in as much detail as I can.
• I then write down what I think went wrong and what went right and what if?
• I then merge in from another point of view to be that extra bit critical on myself.
• I think of the things that might have worked better and would be better for the future.
• I then write down what I should try.

'Graphs, charts and diagrams' definitely didn't work for me but I'm glad I gave it a go thanks to some advice. I went along the lines of the chart ranking graph for Chronicle. See link below.

This has definitely been an experience and a successful one too. I'll probably be "journal-ing" about it tonight. 

'Keeeeep blogging'

http://www.topappcharts.com/371886793/app-details-chronicle-for-ipad-a-personal-journal.php

Task 2B firstly...

Hi pepes...

So I've been having a think about which suggestions to try in this section, and I've decided on all except 'Description' and 'Graphs, charts and diagrams'.
I know that I've mentioned about being a visual learner, so you'd think that the diagrams options would appeal to me, but it doesn't. I think when it comes to my thoughts, I'd rather be pretty thorough about my day with my own writing and I can easily look up on this. I'm a real deep thinker. It's different from trying to learn something written down by somebody else, I mean with my journal; I wrote it, It was my idea to write it and it's my mind, therefore it's not hard to just sit down, read and recap on my own thoughts as it would be to read somebody else's. I might try the 'diagrams' option just out of curiosity. I may very well surprise myself. It's all about developing and learning after all.
Being a deep thinker and having quite a logic to my thinking, the 'description' suggestion didn't appeal to me either. It's just; this is it, this is where and this is when. It isn't profound enough for me to get on making improvements.

Emma Prices' blog helped me to think of something else to try. I will try using different coloured pens for different parts of my thinking. I think it could make it even easier to sum things up.
Will update in a week or so on how I got on and what my desired way of writing is.

'Keeeeep blogging'

Task 1C YouTube

Well here is my YouTube clip. I decided on a different approach to others on this task with the use of images and music etc. I find myself to be quite a creative person so I didn't want to neglect my creativity. :)
Do  take a peek:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVDRJ_vg-n8

 'Keeeeep Blogging'