Artefact Antics

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?

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!!!

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.

Interview 1

WOW!

Today I went to conduct my first interview that I would use in my new inquiry, "Tap Dance training: Are current methods in the UK preparing the dancers of today for tomorrow’s stages?"

 

 

Well, I didn't actually ask any questions.
I didn't really give much insight into my chosen topic.
I didn't really speak much at all!

I just let this lady talk.

... and I'm so glad I did!!!


There are so many things that she brought up that I had not even considered. It had not even crossed my mind that it may also be the teachers holding students back because of themselves, not because of outside influences or limitations.
I had thought of the way to ask questions, and had actually formulated them to ask at each interview. However, having not asked any questions and had all of this extra information thrown at me, it's clear that these questions need tweaking somewhat. I can also see that there is more than one way I can look at this inquiry, and that I need to re-look at what I want this to achieve, both immediately and in time as the way I conduct this could affect a good many people.
I did not intend to name and shame people in this inquiry: I still don't. But I feel as though I am able to put some of the events and anecdotes into it, as long as I feel it adds something to my inquiry, and is not used with malice.

Well, time to think fast!!!

Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra

There are so many jobs that I do where I turn up, teach to a certain piece of music, with the planned steps, and leave again. Although this one may have been a little different it wasn't until I had been there a night that I realised how beautifully this tied in with my university work!
A colleague and myself had been asked to go to a residential centre in Devon on Thursday night, in lieu of teaching them a routine on the Friday morning.

The only difference being... not a single person had previously taken a tap dance lesson!

The people we had been asked to take this class with were the Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra who thought it would be fun for someone to come in to teach them tap during one of their residential weekends.
As these people were beginners, my colleague an I had free reign on what we could teach them: this is where my syllabus vs free training has a part to play.

We chose not to go down the syllabus route as this may have been a little degrading to find out that this is what 5 year olds start with, regardless of the fact they have never done tap before, and for the fact we only had them for a short amount of time, syllabus work means that there are many small combinations to learn, which could be a little overpowering for someone who has not tapped, and potentially be quite tedious.
We chose instead to teach them a few steps that we deemed basic (although some of these do not appear until the vocational syllabi at the end of the ISTD training system) and carry on by teaching them a slightly longer routine which may better reside in their heads.

I found teaching an entire group of complete beginners very interesting. None of these aspired to be a professional tap dancer in any way, but there were some individuals in the room that did want to succeed at what they were given that day, and there some, even working in that short while that showed great potential.

The routine we taught was not the easiest of routines and would not have been deemed appropriate for a grade 3 student (many of those in these classes were 11 and 12 years old, it would not be uncommon for this age student to be in a grade 3 class). I cannot say, by any means that those in the orchestra class would be as technically sound as people who had danced in a syllabus class, but I cannot speak for all, and technique was not focused on in the 1.5 hour lesson that each orchestra group had, therefore I cannot say whether this could be improved upon over time.

Having a free class allowed us to get through a lot of work in short amount of time and kept the students interested and alert as everything was new and they had to concentrate if they wanted to know what to do.

I think it would have been very interesting had I been able to continue with regular classes for Devon Youth Jazz Orchestra to see how things went over a period of a few weeks. But for now I would say that not doing syllabus work was the best choice to get as much out of the kids that we had, therefore, in my books, 1 up to free work!

Module 2 - Critical Reflection

Module 2 ‘Professional Practitioner Inquiry’ was something that I got quite excited about when I read through the Handbook, but it wasn’t until the first campus session that I really got involved in the work.

I very much wanted to improve on Module 1 as I was disappointed in myself and the work I had put in, so I tried to remedy this, only to realise, halfway through the second module, through one of the members in my SIG that my blog had been hacked and was not visible to the public. At this time I got a little despondent, but soon pulled my socks up and got back on track.

 

The difficulty I had at the start of this module was simply the topic of my inquiry. I first veered towards the generic psychological aspects of the dance world, but decided very early on that this was very generic, and decided instead to section every aspect that I could have looked at as I was still so undecided in which topic to choose (see Appendix 4.1)

This is when I had to look at myself. At this time I was, and still am in a state of transition: I had been injured for a long period of time, however, at this stage, my injury has healed to the point where I can now properly dance on it. It still causes problems at times, but I am usually able to get through the whole of a class. With this in mind, I did not know whether I would be going out and auditioning for performance work and therefore did not know which question route to follow. Thankfully, this is where I embarked on the wonder that be the SIG. I told them my situation, and they help me to get my questions down to only 2, (see Appendix 4.2) They advised that I could use everything I knew from my past in a vocational school, or that I could branch out into what I currently do now, and reminded me that I am likely to one day come back to what I am currently doing and that I am in the right position and know the right people to do enough research for the inquiry. They also pointed out how much I seem to enjoy what I am currently doing: managing a large part of a dance organisation, and that I am likely to enjoy the inquiry more if I am more passionate about it. This was the deciding factor for me. My inquiry then became “Health and Safety in Dance Training: Help or Hindrance?” (see Appendix 4.3)

My starting in the research to this may not actually have seemed related to my inquiry, but I felt that I had to check whether I may assume that all dance teachers can be treated as equals, even though they are individually assessing a situation, guided by their own opinions and morals (see Appendix 4.4)

 

Ethics was something that I enjoyed, but the results shocked me! Being honest, I did this alongside my researching in Section 4, so was not completely aware of all of the ethical issues that should be involved in the workplace: I had morals, and knew loosely about the legal side of things, so the generic thing of policies came to mind, but I don’t think I could have named (under a legitimate heading) anything else that was supposed to be in place. Therefore, in my head, I had to go through the introduction I had when I first started my term of employment, or at least what I thought had happened! (see Appendix 5.1) Task B was the thing that really did shock me. I expected to have missed out many policies that my place of work had, and when I found out that there was only one in place I went into a state of panic! I wholly believed that this would be unlawful, and spent a long time doing research, scared of asking my SIG whether they had any better insight than I about this. I found on Dance UK (2011) that organisations are to have the following policies in place, as appropriate to their practice.

·         Child protection.

·         Disability including reference to disabled dancers in a company.

·         Equal opportunities.

·         Health and Safety – general.

·         Injury prevention and management.

·         Eating disorders

This, definitely showing more than one policy, still scared me. So I decided to do some more digging, and spoke directly to the NSPCC and to the department of Sport Education, on the premise that I was to start a dance organisation, with exactly the same credentials as the one I currently work, and yes, as long as everything is covered in the policy, the single policy was fine. (see Appendix 5.2)

Having been so surprised about the little I knew about the ethical issues in one task; when my topic of inquiry is so heavily based on such, I needed to make sure that everything was in order for my inquiry. And got to working on my ethics form with the help of the reader. I was very happy with such until I came across a comment on a blog, regarding the anonymity of children in the inquiry, and very much agreed with this. Even though the quote was with regard to very young children, I thought that it was a very good idea to keep the identity of any minor hidden, and have chosen to follow this in my own inquiry.

“For my inquiry I hope to give interviews, observations, basic surveys and internet research for biographies, but when it comes to the face to face stuff, I've decided to ask permission for the teachers I would interview whether or not they want to be made anonymous or not, but to put a strict rule to keeping the mentioned children anonymous full stop.”

GALLACHER. K. (2014) Task 5d Ethics [Online] 16^th April 2014. Available from: http://natalieamartin.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/task-5d-ethics.html . [Accessed: 10^th May 2014]

 

As I felt that I needed to further integrate ethics into my work, I decided to carry out informal trials before presenting the support form to my employer. This was something I greatly enjoyed, and was excited to see how passionate people were about my choice of topic: When I first sent out my survey, I didn’t expect anyone to reply! I found it more difficult when leading a focus group to not taint people’s answers as a small difference in tone of voice can hold completely different connotations! I realised at this point, that there must be a lot of hypothetical research in my chosen topic, as I will be working with uncomfortable issues for some, but I quickly realised that this will not impact too heavily on my inquiry. For example, I can simply point to a place on a child’s body, rather than actually touch it, and all will know where I am talking about. In this case, the physical contact is not necessary. This is when I decided to approach my employer with my form, and I am glad for waiting, as she did ask many questions and how it may impact.

I wanted to keep my collation of information open, as I see a need for 3 of the tools to address my questions. For children and parents I feel that a focus group is best: to be able to get the opinions of many together and to enhance confidence. For teachers that I am not in close contact with, or those who may be less experienced: a survey sits best. And for those who I believe to have the best knowledge of the subject from all 3 perspectives, and also now including dance training boards: a separate interview provides the most in depth and interpersonal response.

My award title, I feel, reflects my endeavours for the betterment of my workplace for all. I organise all student data and timetables for both students and teachers, and the curriculum they are to cover in lessons. I also take part in the choreographic elements that they are to be involved in, and help to decide who may be in a performance if there is on to be staged. I always want to find better ways to do all of this, whilst looking out for the dancers’ well-being and trying to dramatically improve their dance ability as I feel that some people have just got into a habit of going to a syllabus class, repeating the same thing each week and becoming complacent. I want to be able to push people and to see quicker improvements in people. I also believe that this is something that builds the confidence in the dancer, and I feel that the entire workplace could benefit from my inquiry, therefore I feel it plays a hand under the banner of Arts Management (see Appendix 6).

 

Overall, I can say that Module 2 has expanded my ability in how to research a topic, through different leads and different devices and that I must be aware of the ethical issues before I do anything in my line of work (not just for this inquiry). I am much more aware of the effect that something I do or say may have on others and now know what to consider, and how to control these situations, thus I now feel prepared for my inquiry.

 

 

Appendices:

4.1: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Starting Module 2. [Online] 15^th April 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/starting-module-2.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

4.2: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Lines of Inquiry – Part 2. [Online] 17^th April 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/having-got-small-amount-of-feedback.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

4.3: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Lines of Inquiry – Part 3. [Online] 19^th April 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/lines-of-inquiry-part-3.html 19th April 2014 [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

4.4: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Task 4D – Literature Review – Book 1. [Online] 7^th May 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/looking-within-classes-of-which-dance.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

5.1: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Professional Ethics – Task 5a [Online] 17^th April2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/professional-ethics-task-5a.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

5.2: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Professional Ethics – Task 5B. [Online] 5^th May 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/professional-ethics-task-5b.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

6: MARSHALL. J. J. (2014) Task 6C – Award Title. [Online] 6^th May 2014. Available from: http://jjmarshall.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/task-6c-award-title.html [Accessed: 13^th May 2014]

 

Task 4D - Literature Review - Book 1

Looking within classes of which dance is taught, I must look firstly at the two things that must be in place for anything of this sort tow happen: somebody to learn from, and somebody to teach. However, with health and safety being my focus here, most of this responsibility is to be put upon the teacher, and I will therefore start with them:

 

 

 

As I wanted to set something out for each teacher, I must first look at how much sway is given for personality traits, and whether this is something that is taken into consideration. Therefore my first book is

“Personality and Intelligence at Work” by Adrian Furnham

So looking at the section on individual differences at work, it talks about differences in personalities, and whether this has any effect on their success within the workplace, neutral of the type of job:

 

Although I have not conducted a study myself, nor gathered secondary information, it does give theories that others have come up with.

 



 

This was not something that I wanted to go too deeply into, but was something that I felt needed to be addressed early on in my investigations. It may arise at some time, deeper into my inquiry when I open new paths to follow. However, from the findings here, I am quite happy to generalise my findings to all teachers, however I must pay attention to the external, situational factors and set things out in this way: If all teachers are expected to act upon the same morals, the action of the teacher is therefore dependent on the circumstances.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=y4KOAgAAQBAJ&pg=PR4&dq=978-1-84169-586-0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=_GBpU_zDBMaJPa6fgJAF&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=978-1-84169-586-0&f=false