My artefact was something I had been so confident about, right from the very start: something I would often get excited about having been inspired by something somebody had produced about the England Tap Team's journey to the IDO World Tap Championships... I was going to produce a documentary.
Within this documentary, my interviews with some of the world's leading tap dancers, teachers and training students of today. Within this I would include excerpts of classes I had observed and demonstrations from teachers and students incorporating the elements I had explored throughout my inquiry, however, this was not to be the case.
Having been kept on a certain timeframe, due to the constraints of my trip to the US, I unfortunately did everything at the last minute... including my preparations of release forms. Whilst I had had them set out for a long time, I had forgotten to send them off with the added condition of using images, and had to send these over to be verified just before I left. I also managed to time my trip really well, it fell right into the middle of the university's holiday. Here I am, emailing my tutor on her holiday, hoping and prying that she may see my message and answer. Thankfully, she did!
I had already started my interviews by this point, so I had to leave out the part about the images being used. Unfortunately, I had gotten a fair way into my interviews by this point and decided that my artefact needed to be changed. How could I present the information I had collated? How could I make something that felt as personable as the documentary I had first intended to make? My time in America was something very special to me, and I felt very privileged that the people who spoke to me, took time out of their busy schedules and spoke to me!
I decided to make a book, or at least the start of one.
There's something prestigious about a book. Your story, bound in pages, with a start, an end, and something in between, and you'll always have something to show, hard evidence that you have achieved something. This is where I would display all of my work and present it in a way that would appeal to teachers and dancers alike. I didn't think much more on this until this past weekend, when I realised that this was not realistic within the current time constraints. Actually, regardless of the time constraints, this wasn't really a practical way to present my work at all!
A book, as I said, has a start, an end, and something in between... but it has an end. I have decided that I want to create something that is easily accessible by all: a book has to be written, published, produced and then bought to get into the hands of your intended audience. It is also very hard to be taken to the exact point you need without a bookmark. I have decided I want to create something that will be ongoing, something that people can add to, something to which people can share their thoughts and ideas: something in which to create a community, a community which currently does not seem to have a place yet in the UK.
I think I have an idea of what I wish to do, but any ideas anyone?
Monday 20 April 2015
Thursday 26 March 2015
New York Public Library
So, I have found, during my inquiry, that there is very little literature on my chosen topic, tap dance. So I thought I would use my time wisely whilst I was in America and would go to the Public Library, having seen one previously near Bryant Park.
Deciding then that I didn't have time until the next day, I made my way to class at Broadway Dance Center and happened to meet someone whom I had only heard about from a friend within a conversation at the World Tap Championships in December last year!
I had told this young man about my intentions of going to the library, as he had spoken to me about some books, and he asked why I was going to the standard public library. He then told me of the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, and with that, that's where I was headed!
Having got there, I managed to look up the titles of books I wanted to research and found some, along with some DVDs I wished to watch; although there were not many, there were more than I could find in England! So I made my way over to the aisle where the tap dance books were, and had a hard time trying to locate their numbers. It was only when I saw them all, I realised why... Out of the entire collection of book they had, among the sea of ballet references and modern dance, and musical theatre... meet the tap collection.
Yes, that's it.
And the one book I had wanted to read, as it's date was after 2005 wasn't even there, somebody had checked it out earlier that day.
So, this resulted in my looking for DVDs.
They had a strange code and I couldn't seem to find them on the shelves, so I asked for help and I was told that I needed to fill out a form and go to the 3rd floor where someone would set me up on a monitor as I had to watch it there. However there was a little hiccough that I found when filling out the form... I didn't actually have a library card! However, small problem, and I'm now secretly quite excited that I own a NYPL card!
Taking my form up to the third floor, I had to remove my coat and bag and leave them in a cloakroom before entering the guarded room. But I found where to hand the form in and was left to watch the 2 films with my own set of controls so that I could play, pause, rewind and fast forward as I pleased. I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed my day, but I guess you'll have to wait for my literature review to know what I found!!!
Deciding then that I didn't have time until the next day, I made my way to class at Broadway Dance Center and happened to meet someone whom I had only heard about from a friend within a conversation at the World Tap Championships in December last year!
I had told this young man about my intentions of going to the library, as he had spoken to me about some books, and he asked why I was going to the standard public library. He then told me of the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center, and with that, that's where I was headed!
Having got there, I managed to look up the titles of books I wanted to research and found some, along with some DVDs I wished to watch; although there were not many, there were more than I could find in England! So I made my way over to the aisle where the tap dance books were, and had a hard time trying to locate their numbers. It was only when I saw them all, I realised why... Out of the entire collection of book they had, among the sea of ballet references and modern dance, and musical theatre... meet the tap collection.
Yes, that's it.
And the one book I had wanted to read, as it's date was after 2005 wasn't even there, somebody had checked it out earlier that day.
So, this resulted in my looking for DVDs.
They had a strange code and I couldn't seem to find them on the shelves, so I asked for help and I was told that I needed to fill out a form and go to the 3rd floor where someone would set me up on a monitor as I had to watch it there. However there was a little hiccough that I found when filling out the form... I didn't actually have a library card! However, small problem, and I'm now secretly quite excited that I own a NYPL card!
Taking my form up to the third floor, I had to remove my coat and bag and leave them in a cloakroom before entering the guarded room. But I found where to hand the form in and was left to watch the 2 films with my own set of controls so that I could play, pause, rewind and fast forward as I pleased. I have to admit, I thoroughly enjoyed my day, but I guess you'll have to wait for my literature review to know what I found!!!
Monday 2 March 2015
M3 - Stark Realisation
So my last couple of weeks have been less about actually looking into my topic of inquiry and more setting up meetings and interviews and getting the resources and equipment needed for the next part of my inquiry, so it wasn't until last night when my brain got switched back onto the subject.
Having had a day of holding auditions in Kent for one of the places I work, myself and the lady who runs the organisation walked through her front door to her son who seemed very please with himself. Her son, Kai, is 12 and told us he had spent his day working on a step the entire day (a double wing on one foot for those of you who understand tap terminology, for those of you who don't IT'S HARD!) and that by the end, he had accomplished it. Now, neither I, nor his mother can do this step, and although the kid is really quite ridiculously good, a little bit of doubt had set, so in the end we got him to get his tap shoes out.
Took a couple more attempts than he'd planned, but yes, he did it!
It made me think. This is a step that doesn't appear anywhere in any of the UK's syllabi. A single wing does, and the explanation of the double is easy enough, just nobody is asked to try it! If a twelve year old can do it, because he is willing to try, why do we not offer this to everybody?
This was not the only step that Kai gave me last night. I have been trying to sort out classes for next term in this certain workplace, and myself and the rest of the teachers have put together a list of steps to work from, and are trying to come up with more, as our seniors have nearly exhausted our current repertory and there are only so many times that we can go elsewhere for inspiration, or so much time we have to explore by ourselves in a studio, or sometimes it is simply a fact of we have got to a point where our brain blocks itself off. This is where children and the next generations come in yet again.
People have no option but to use what we provide them with, but it takes a certain mind set to be able to explore. Within a syllabus, people are taught that this exercise is right, or wrong, with very little in between. They are also taught, "At this standard you should do this, and once you have gotten to the end of the syllabus, there is nothing left for you!". This was something that Kai disproved to me last night. Kai, had taken a standard step (Shuffle Pick up - which is one of the syllabi's staple steps) and simply added things to it. Yes, within syllabi, this simple step is adorned with a few things here and there, and a few changes of leg etc, but not to the standard that Kai had shown last night. He had put thing together in a way that I never would have thought, and whilst I relished in the fact that this little human had done this, and grabbed a notepad to write these new fangled (for my eyes, somebody will have done them somewhere) steps down, to try them out myself (I failed abysmally might I just add, but I will work on them), I am a little scared, as I have known it happen to me at a slightly younger age, that there are many teachers who would look at his feet and tell him that "That's not a step in tap", purely because it does not arise in their known tap syllabus and it is not something they recognise.
This has gotten me back to me looking at my inquiry questions and making sure that they are truly what I wish to find out and who I need to be looking at to make a change, if possible. Sometimes it takes one person, no matter how old they are to make you sit back and re-evaluate.
Having had a day of holding auditions in Kent for one of the places I work, myself and the lady who runs the organisation walked through her front door to her son who seemed very please with himself. Her son, Kai, is 12 and told us he had spent his day working on a step the entire day (a double wing on one foot for those of you who understand tap terminology, for those of you who don't IT'S HARD!) and that by the end, he had accomplished it. Now, neither I, nor his mother can do this step, and although the kid is really quite ridiculously good, a little bit of doubt had set, so in the end we got him to get his tap shoes out.
Took a couple more attempts than he'd planned, but yes, he did it!
It made me think. This is a step that doesn't appear anywhere in any of the UK's syllabi. A single wing does, and the explanation of the double is easy enough, just nobody is asked to try it! If a twelve year old can do it, because he is willing to try, why do we not offer this to everybody?
This was not the only step that Kai gave me last night. I have been trying to sort out classes for next term in this certain workplace, and myself and the rest of the teachers have put together a list of steps to work from, and are trying to come up with more, as our seniors have nearly exhausted our current repertory and there are only so many times that we can go elsewhere for inspiration, or so much time we have to explore by ourselves in a studio, or sometimes it is simply a fact of we have got to a point where our brain blocks itself off. This is where children and the next generations come in yet again.
People have no option but to use what we provide them with, but it takes a certain mind set to be able to explore. Within a syllabus, people are taught that this exercise is right, or wrong, with very little in between. They are also taught, "At this standard you should do this, and once you have gotten to the end of the syllabus, there is nothing left for you!". This was something that Kai disproved to me last night. Kai, had taken a standard step (Shuffle Pick up - which is one of the syllabi's staple steps) and simply added things to it. Yes, within syllabi, this simple step is adorned with a few things here and there, and a few changes of leg etc, but not to the standard that Kai had shown last night. He had put thing together in a way that I never would have thought, and whilst I relished in the fact that this little human had done this, and grabbed a notepad to write these new fangled (for my eyes, somebody will have done them somewhere) steps down, to try them out myself (I failed abysmally might I just add, but I will work on them), I am a little scared, as I have known it happen to me at a slightly younger age, that there are many teachers who would look at his feet and tell him that "That's not a step in tap", purely because it does not arise in their known tap syllabus and it is not something they recognise.
This has gotten me back to me looking at my inquiry questions and making sure that they are truly what I wish to find out and who I need to be looking at to make a change, if possible. Sometimes it takes one person, no matter how old they are to make you sit back and re-evaluate.
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