The Eyes Have It

When observing classes I thought the reason for the lack of performance may be due to the fact that every studio that is used has no mirrors. The children are unable to see how they look or focus on their facial expressions however when reading ‘The Eyes Have It” by Allegra Kent I realised that mirrors are not necessary when you have the right guidance.

“There are no mirrors in our studio, so right away we go with how it feels, not how it looks. When Paul starts a work, he’ll leave me alone and let me play and find my own way before he fills in exact eye usage. As the piece progresses, he starts to edit and zero in on specific eye advice. I follow the mood and the music and let them lead me. If I’m looking at the audience, it’s directly at them; if Paul feels that it’s too confrontational, his solution is to use the downcast gaze. I pick a spot on a diagonal in front of me. It’s an inward gaze.” Annmaria Mazzini

Working with mirrors is not essential however if a professional needs guidance then a group of young students are going to need it too. What’s the best way to explore this with the students?

“Poets, artists, and children look into the eyes for emotional meaning. Babies stare into their mothers’ eyes. It’s one of their first major connections after the umbilical cord- their mirror into the world. Of course, the eyes don’t exist in isolation. In dance, they complete the line, the gesture, the tilt of the head, and the beauty of the musical phrase” By Allegra Kent

From the results of the questionnaire it showed that the majority of students thought that performance was the main aspect of a dancer and that performance was what made a dancer stand out on stage, I didn’t feel that this came across with in the class. I watched the majority of syllabus classes which I found focused mainly on technique. I discovered that in free classes in which the teacher did not do syllabus, did a warm up, across the floor and routine the students relaxed and performed a lot more. Could this have been due to the spontaneity of the moves? The change in music? Or just a coincidence?

The school that I am working for does a showcase for the students every two years, for just over a year they study a syllabus solidly. I would like to do a little more research before I interview the principle of the school. I want to know her views on adding a free class for the students once a month to enhance their performance skills.

Changes to my inquiry....

When finalising the questions for my survey I decided to write down the questions I want answering first. This helped me immensely when deciding on the final questions. It has also lead to me changing parts of my inquiry.

I want to know how important performance is to the students I will be teaching. How they use performance as part of dancing even if it is subconsciously. By doing this will help me find if there is anything missing in there classes to benefit them expressing themselves.

From research I have made I made my own definition of performance. It includes five aspects;

Facial Expressions, Musicality, Energy, Character and Eyes. I have chosen to refine this to four due to one of the questions in my survey:

3	When watching someone dance what makes an individual stand out?
	(Please tick one)
	1. Flexibility			2. Performance			3.Technique
	4. Musicality			5. Dynamics

This made me think that musicality should not be one of my aspects of a good performance. I feel as if musicality is an aspect of its own, it’s extremely broad and could lead to so many more avenues.

My consent forms are printed and I am scheduled to observe 4 classes on the week commencing 11^th March. I have chosen not to observe the principles class. I have made this decision as the Principle is aware of the topic of my inquiry. I don’t want to observe a class and her feel influenced to make changes to her normal teaching habits based on my inquiry. I feel she may now be more conscious of the subject. The questionnaires will be filled in by the pupils that I observe.

Module 3!!

The fun begins..................From reading blogs I can see everyone is pretty much in the same position as myself. After reading Luke Bohanns Blog http://lukebohanna.blogspot.co.uk I felt so much better. I feel like I am going to repeat everything he has blogged.

I am currently working on land in a gym (shift work) also fitting in Promotional work as well as any auditions. Coming home from the cruise and starting life on land after two years has been mayhem however I now feel like I am getting settled and getting into as much of a routine as I possibly can. This is the first time since graduating that I have not got a dance job lined up. It's scary! I am teaching but I am feeling the pressure and expectations around me to get my next break hence Module 3 unfortunately  taking the back seat.

Where I am with Module 3

I have printed parent/guardian consent forms for any students that are under 16 with in the class I observe. Which will begin to take place next week.

I am still working on my questionnaire. A questionnaire is not as easy as it looks, I am struggling to find the most beneficial questions. Not to get the answers I want but to get the data I need to benefit my inquiry.

I have arranged to interview three teachers, which will take place after my observations are complete. I do not want the interview to influence that classes that I observe.

I have decided to focus on the four following;

1. Questionnaire Questions - I need to finalise my questions by next week. I need to keep moving forward with this inquiry and this is holding me back. 

2. Gathering Data - This needs to be done ASAP, I need to go in head first and full out!

2. Structure my analyse (This thought panics me) - Start preparing for analyse, I feel like I am going to collect data and not know what to do with it. I need to plan and prepare myself so when I have received all the data I know how I am going to organise it. Especially my excel spreadsheet for the data from my questionnaire.

4. Literature - I need to research further into my chosen topic, Performance. I have found websites that supports teachers and also a university that has tutorials in performance. However I need to deepen my search and find readings relevant to my inquiry.

From everyone that has blogged about the first campus session I saw that Paula's slide show was a big help. I am currently working my way through as you can see from above. Kolbs cycle now becomes even more relevant to our current work. The timeline is a great way of keeping on top of things and showing myself that I am moving forward. I intend on moving steadily in the right direction.

Critical Reflection on module 2

I am going to look at module two, explaining what I have gained, the ideas that have become present in my studies and my experiences I have had exploring the three readers.

Developing lines of professional inquiry

When reflecting on Reader 4 I thought deep into where I am going. I have so many avenues to explore being at the beginning of my career. I shared all my thoughts; (Appendix A). Little did I know that a lot of the questions and inquiries that I had linked together. Even though my phone calls to Paula were few and far between due to my circumstances, I was always able to feed of her to define my questions. Realising this I made it a regular thing to discuss my progress and get ideas from the cast I am currently working with.

Due to the limited Internet and also the storm “Sandy” I did find this module a struggle; (Appendix C). I wanted to share all the ideas I had and my views on others blogs. I tried to do this as much as I could, by saving peoples blogs to my computer and writing out a reply for when I could get connected was very beneficial. So many people had good ideas and comments that would help me progress. (Appendix D)

Professional Ethics

I never realised the depth of ethics; personal, professional, organizational and social, that’s a lot to take onboard. However the more I read and researched the more I realised it was common sense. In the world we live in, it’s nature and nurture for the majority to be brought up in an ethically correct society.

My personal ethics were something I had to reflect on continuously. My ethics are just something that I do everyday they become nature and it was difficult to clasp the idea of them being virtues that I have. When you work for a company they have there own rules that you should follow but that still allows you to have your own - (Appendix E). Within my inquiry I need to follow the ethics of the company I will be working with, also considering age and consent as well as me personally.

Tools of professional inquiry

This is all about trial and error. When piloting the tools I gained unnecessary information, inaccurate statistics (Appendix F) and was under prepared. When I looked back I needed structure for even the paper that I take the data down on. I need to ask the questions that are going to get the answers on the information I lack (Appendix G)

I now feel a lot more confident in myself for when I have to use these tools in my inquiries. I feel I made all the mistakes to insure they will not happen again.  Listening back to the interview the more confident I became the more information I got from the participant. From everything I have learnt from Module 1 and Now Module 2 I feel I am ready to conduct an ethically correct inquiry using the tools I have to their full potential.

Inquiry tools – What I discovered!!

Questionnaire

Links:

Survey-

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YMPSM9C

Results-

file://localhost/Users/kimberlyjane-/Documents/SurveyMonkey - Survey Results.webarchive

“the purpose of the survey is to produce statistics, that is, quantitative or numerical descriptions about some aspects of the study population”

I certainly got statistics from my survey however they were not correct. If you answered question 2 with “yes” you should have then answered question 3.

22 people answered yes so there should have been 22 people answer question 3 however I got 24 answers as you can see from my results. Due to the misinterpretation I had incorrect data. I would not be able to justify using this.

The majority of people that answered my questionnaire went to the same school as myself. I got very similar data. Could this be bias?

Quantity over quality, it was difficult to get people to even fill in the survey. People don’t have time to spare nowadays, even getting friends to do you a favor and pilot it for you.

You can’t get the “why” in! I wanted to ask the four people why they didn’t think that acting would contribute to their performance skills but I never got the chance.

Interview

First of all I received permission from the participant to conduct the interview then also asked if they were happy for my to record.

Preparation is vital. I did not have enough questions. Even though the conversation flowed and I was able to ask “why” and get in depth answers and follow up on things that interested me I could have had more planned. I felt that I did not maximize the time and opportunity.

I recorded that the interview so I could listen back to it and take down the necessary information.

I found this beneficial and was able to gather a lot of interesting information.

Observation

It was hard to get my head around whether I was being bias or not. Paula described it as my interpretation, which made it become a little clearer. Again with all the inquiry tools preparation is the key. You need to be clear of what you are looking for, have a clear structure of how you are going to get it on to paper. It is very easy to get sidelined onto other subjects as one thing leads to another. However it is very interesting to actually focus on one thing and see what becomes apparent. I trialed both participating in the observation and also being an insider. It depends on what you are researching to which one is most beneficial. For my question at the time was; what makes a good performer? I think both were just as good and I got the results that I needed.

Focus Group

This was the most useful tool that I used for my particular question. I found that everyone feed off each other and I got a lot of great ideas and answers. I did not record the focus group and I wish I had. I found it extremely difficult to write everything discussed. I was asking people to repeat themselves, if I had recorded it I could have gone back later. It also was restricting my chances at being part of the group, I could have kept the conservation flowing in the right direction as well as delving deeper into peoples thoughts. When researching this method I found the “long table approach” which I could use once the conversation had been written down. You can the cut up to conversation and sort the answers in categories of questions and topics. I did not use this tool to its full potential however I got some great results.

Overall

The key is Preparation.

Plan how you are going to record Data.

Use Memory, Field Notes, Flip charts, Drawings and Audio Recoreder.

Develop and Finalise good Questions.

Have Key Words.

Summarise the end.

Be systematic.

Have a Process and be able to describe it to others.

Know where to look for Information.

Have the right Resources.

Know your audience