Module 3 Artefact Presentations on Zoom

My notes and feedback

Due to these unprecedented times, the module 3 students presented their work via the Zoom platform. I had the honour of listening and giving feedback to the following students:
Benny Tyas
Cathleen Limerick
Emi Ichikawa
Tom Holdsworth
Taylor Byrnes
Louise Elliott (Jones)

As a student that is about to embark on the final module of my course, I found it inspiring to hear from those that have just completed their inquiry. I enjoyed listening to their learning journeys, choice of topic, and their reasonings, the struggles they overcame, and what they will take with them moving forward past the BAPP course.

Benny Tyas

Benny is of a musical theatre background, who explored the varying degrees of control of being a performer and freelancer. Themes that tied into the idea of control were auditions, mental health, and financial stability. Benny emphasised a shocking statistic:

6 times higher suicidal rates in performers of artistic background than the average person. 

From interviewing performers, he discovered that 52% of them felt a lack of control in their lives.

Another key element that was raised that I found important was the mental side of injuries. In a company, it is perfectly acceptable to take six weeks off work with a knee problem, but not for anxiety. Benny said there was a general stigma around mental health as being seen as an illness that needs time off work just like a physical injury. Social media was also a topic that he touched upon, and how these sites induce a negative comparison mindest. This can lead to performers never feeling good enough for their chosen field of expertise. A repeated phrase was 'black and white thinking'. 

I had never heard of this method before, and I found it interesting to hear his thoughts on it and how he applied it to his inquiry. Benny's artefact was a colourful and vibrant picture book that married up perfectly to his learning process and inquiry presentation. 

Cathleen Limerick 

Cathleen is also from a musical theatre background, where she moved from South Africa to the UK to study musical theatre full-time. She then moved back to her home and started performing and teaching. She now works in a school, where she encountered teaching performing arts to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder, for the first time. This new experience for her occurred during her second module of the course. When she decided to base her inquiry around ASD, she decided against using the word 'therapy' as that seemed to quantitative, where the BAPP course requires qualitative data. Cathleen assured everyone that the interview setting change, due to the lockdown measures, from in-person to online did not affect the way she carried out the interviews, nor the way the participants responded. What she found fascinating was the different perspectives she received from the interviews. Another point that is relatable to most students is to not fall into the rabbit hole of research! Keep the research relevant, asking the questions "why is this?" and "how?"

As she went through her inquiry process, she noticed that labelling ASD people "high" and "low" was wrong, as it is simply a matter of how that person learns so should not be put down to think they are "low functioning". Another word of wisdom was to embrace the unknown. There is not always a solution, but investigating possibilities is a process, not just a question and answer session. Her artefact was a homemade puzzle, where she used photoshop to deisgn her picture and then print it off and fit it like a puzzle. Very clever and imaginative. And finally, I loved this quote she used: 

"Not all those who wander are lost" - J.R.R. Tolkien. 

Emi Ichikawa 

Emi studied musical theatre in Manchester, and has experience in dancing on cruise ships. Her inquiry was based on the change in life artists go through as they leave cruise ship work to on-land contracts. Emi described the sense of loss of direction, the financial instabilities, the struggles of being a freelancer. I think she was so brave to truly say it as it is, almost stating the obvious which is something dancers just 'sweep under the surface'. Cruise ship work may be monotonous and cause a great deal of homesickness, but it gives financial security and structure to your day. Whereas, freelancing and hunting for on-land contracts is difficult in many ways; creating your own daily structure, getting a part-time job alongside to pay the bills, the ongoing stress of auditions, the demand to network to get 'a foot in the door', having gaps in between employment. In terms of her analysis of her data, Emi compared the positive and negative effects. She had clear and good narration during her artefact, where she composed a video. Her analysis of the actual video was very interesting, where she explained and justified every dance section and cross-cutting in between her life on the ship and life in London. 

Tom Holdsworth

Tom began his presentation with his artefact, giving a short introduction of what his inquiry entailed. Immediately, I was drawn into the video he created as his artefact, which displayed his life journey in terms of his upbringing which led to his inquiry topic. Tom decided to investigate the retirement of ballet dancers, as he himself has been up and down over his own end to his ballet career to pursue acting. He interviewed 10 dancers, 7 of which were still dancing, 3 who had retired. Something he shared was particularly beneficial for me which was the professionalism that can decrease as you interview people that you know, and work with. Tom explained how he had to keep professional, listen more, allow the participant to talk because then you will find out even more information than the original question planned. The key phrase that Tom discovered through the data collection process was - the end of your career is up to you. This attitude was not a preconceived idea, but one that developed during the inquiry. Artists should take control, despite spending most of their career being told what to do. The end of a ballet career is subjective, so it was impossible to find a definitive answer. I found Tom most engaging, even without a PowerPoint as he spoke very eloquently. 

Taylor Byrnes

Taylor is a dance teacher who investigated the social media aspect as a tool for dance. Is social media key to career progression nowadays? Taylor found it a struggle at first to get to grips with using social media more herself to get an insider's perspective. The connection between her practice and topic was clear, but I am still uncertain exactly what her inquiry question title was and what she wanted to find out. Was it using social media as a positive tool for dance communication? How much impact has social media had on the dance industry? How effective is social media as a tool for dance teachers? Taylor was very passionate about her topic, but I wish there was time during the Zoom to ask her more questions. 

Louise Elliott (Jones)

Louise is a drama and dance teacher at a secondary school in Northamptonshire. Her investigation involved the benefits of dance in schools. The findings of literature was difficult for her to narrow down until she found a documentary she used in module 1 which was Darcey Bussell interviewing various scholars who specialised in how dance makes people happy. As a teacher, Louise wanted to discover how dance can help us to learn. Apparently, Dr Dance could not read until he was 22. Being told he could not read, implying great stupidity, knocked his confidence. However, dance came so naturally to him which made Louise believe that perhaps the tools of dance, social skills, teamwork, coordination, problem-solving, could actually help students to learn. Dance is power. Unfortunately, dance is being pulled from the school curriculum in her workplace which is very sad. Finally, her artefact was a dance video filmed in her home with her wearing a tie over her eyes - dancing blind. This represented how she felt lost during the inquiry planning and process, but eventually found her way.