The sights I have seen in the last few days have been quite incredible. Unfortunately it has effected my progress with the module but I will catch up as soon as I get a good internet connection and blog the work I have been doing while rocking about at sea for many days.
The tropical storm Sandy turned out to be a lot more damaging than first predicted. It effected the route of my ship and we were left at sea for over four days. We were able to dock at Freeport in the Bahamas and only receive the tail ends of the winds. My family are cruising so we thought we would make the most of it. The island had been flooded the previous day, roads were destroyed, trees ripped out, it was quite a sight. The lady that drove us around the island no longer had a house, it had been totally destroyed in the winds! What surprised me the most was her attitude, she laughed, chatted away and couldn't do more for us. Her attitude towards life was so positive. There was me worrying that I couldn't get online and her with no house. It put a lot of things into prospective!
Not only did I experience the effects of the hurricane on land but I also felt the effects on stage. Engaging your core muscles while on stage is extremely important however when you don't have control on gravity it's pretty much impossible. It got to the point where we were shortening the shows and taking out the risky numbers with lifts etc. We had to lower our kicks to 90 degrees and pirouettes were taken down to singles. Eventually the shows were cut!
I thought I would just update you on my whereabouts and why the lack of blogging. To top off my couple of weeks my family were also cruising, it consisted of a lot of sea sick tablets!
Thanks to everyone who commented on my blog, I word documented a lot of comments I have on other peoples blogs and will update with in the next week.
Good to hear form your Kimberly - Sandy caused a lot of havoc and interesting to hear how it affected your work especially as you were talking about aspects of a good performer. It reminds one that performance and performers have a particular job to do and there seems to be a level of expectation that if circumstances allow that 'the show will go on'. Is this a part of a craft aspect or is in an industry reality?
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like you are doing the work - so other aspects of Part 4 about disciplinary and transdisciplinary aspects of your topic - something about 'stage presence"? Also ethical aspects (Part 5) - this latest blog relates to it as the health and safety of the performers must have been at risk during Sandy - and the tools and the plan! So literature about your topic - have you managed to find any yet? what tools would be good? Will you be talking to people in your workplace? I remember a good project about the different way that dancers and choreographers perceived of their roles within cruise performance teams. Finding literature about stage presence (Part 6) and trying out some tools (interview a friend) might lead you to honing in on your topic - look at Alan's blog - Jacob Hughes was also looking at dance properties like technique and style- so refining your inquiry questions so that they can be put into a format that you can plan some practitioner research around. Look at tutor blogs for some suggestions - also who else is doing performance in a similar way? Consulting peers on BAPP (Arts and in your cruise ship team.
Please get in touch when you can... Bw