As drafts of your work come in now; I am re-posting this blog post from last term for students on Module One who would not have seen it and as a reminder for those of you on Module Two and Three...
Drafts
are intended to initiate a feedback dialogue (in person, skype, via
email) with your supervisor, they are not usefully used to ask if things
are 'right' or sent with an expectation of receiving corrections, by
way of a pre-marking opportunity.
Please do receive feedback as an extended discussion of your work.
Often
feedback contains prompts for further reading, suggested
texts/practitioners to look at, comments regarding the level of critical
thinking/analysis in your writing over overly descriptive personal
narrative approaches etc.. Feedback comments are not telling you to 'correct' something and re-submit, but more trying to help you to move your thinking and writing on as we see the process of your work developmentally.
With
this in mind, when you have received feedback on a draft of work,
please take time to read and consider comments made, come back to your
supervisor asking to extend the conversation, arrange a skype is you
have further thoughts and questions as a result of the feedback, but
please try not to send a 2nd draft asking if the work is now correct.
At
MA level we put our trust in you as professional people and see our
role as supervisors as guding you, being a critical friend, promting,
pushing your thoughts, challenging sometimes in order for you to develop
further. We are not testing you getting things 'right' we are
interested in your engagement and curiosity about your own work.
Thursday 28 March 2019
Tuesday 12 March 2019
Reflection and Ethics...
We had some great conversations around reflection and ethics this evening with people from Module one and two contributing to this discussion group.
We recognised how reflection offers a kind of making-sense of past experiences, attributing value and learning from in order to situate and continue on the journey of our professional practice. We noticed how ethics are central to our lives and practice, not something only addressed through research (just that ethics become neccesarily visible then perhaps) and we discussed both ethical considerations, how we are mindful of our actions, words, practice and the potential impact is has on those around us, and how these considerations cannot avoid the social, cultural and historical contexts from which they emerge, and ethical procedures, the ways in which we may go about informing and 'safe-guarding' others of our practice-research. The MORE process we use in Module Two is just this, the ethical procedures that the university requires you to undertake in order to approve your proposal for a research inquiry.
Rhoda bought a good point into the discussion, that of Self-Care, how we might develop a sense of our own ethics as central to who we are particularly when there is no other overtly recognised ethical practice or policy in place to support us, Rhoda will blog more on this. Tara shared some literature she's been reading around Social Research and talked about how she related this to conversations from a previous skype discussion, she will blog more on this in relation to reflection and ethics.. Christopher, Jovanka, Catherine, Nighat, Marianella will also blog their thoughts extending from this conversation. A great discussion with lots of valuable areas raised by you all...thank you.
I look forward to reading your blogs for more, do add your addresses to the comments here!
We recognised how reflection offers a kind of making-sense of past experiences, attributing value and learning from in order to situate and continue on the journey of our professional practice. We noticed how ethics are central to our lives and practice, not something only addressed through research (just that ethics become neccesarily visible then perhaps) and we discussed both ethical considerations, how we are mindful of our actions, words, practice and the potential impact is has on those around us, and how these considerations cannot avoid the social, cultural and historical contexts from which they emerge, and ethical procedures, the ways in which we may go about informing and 'safe-guarding' others of our practice-research. The MORE process we use in Module Two is just this, the ethical procedures that the university requires you to undertake in order to approve your proposal for a research inquiry.
Rhoda bought a good point into the discussion, that of Self-Care, how we might develop a sense of our own ethics as central to who we are particularly when there is no other overtly recognised ethical practice or policy in place to support us, Rhoda will blog more on this. Tara shared some literature she's been reading around Social Research and talked about how she related this to conversations from a previous skype discussion, she will blog more on this in relation to reflection and ethics.. Christopher, Jovanka, Catherine, Nighat, Marianella will also blog their thoughts extending from this conversation. A great discussion with lots of valuable areas raised by you all...thank you.
I look forward to reading your blogs for more, do add your addresses to the comments here!
Sunday 10 March 2019
Respect...Trust and Flow...
I've been thinking a lot this past week about respect, about trust and about flow.
I've been thinking about how these words are meaningful in my life, through my practice, in all that I do. I'm not sure I can see these three things separately from one another, so I am going to explore a little of what I see as their relationship with each other.
Respect and trust for me, are earned through our encounters with others and through the flow was are a part of in our environment. When we meet others in contact improvisation for example (as I've been leading a lot of CI sessions this past week, I have been thinking through this practice particularly), we greet each encounter as a possibility. We offer and we respond, we give and receive information through a non-verbal dialogue with a shared understanding of their being respect for each others offering-gesture through movement. We trust in the environment we are in, co-creating it in the moment of our movement together. We trust in our own bodies, our relationship with gravity, with the earth and with each other. We do not know what is going to happen in an improvisation; that is the very beauty of it!! The word improvise from the Latin 'improvisre' means quite literally not being able to see ahead of time. We enter the space and in doing so we enter into the flow of possibilities; of change, encounter, interruption. We are in a continous flow of communication. Flow becomes an energy which supports us. It is not a thing as such, it is not related directly to time(space), but aware of the presence of flow within each of us and so within the environment we are able to be responsive to it, responsive to its energies, and responsive to change. With a respect for each person and our environment having something meaningful to offer, we can trust ourselves to enter the flow of the moment, to be open to the possibilities of the now.
These processes are not exclusive at all to improvisation, to dance, but this is how I have been thinking about them this week. Respect, trust and flow are a part of who we are as people, communities, societies, the environment, how was approach and are a part of the world around us. It is important to to respect the encounters we have in life, through study maybe this is with other artist-scholars work through literature, or direct engagement through practice. We should respect that this is their lifetime's work, something they are passionate about, have invested time, energy, effort, life into to explore how it is meaningful and are generous enough to share that with you through their writing and/or through their practice. While we don't have to agree with everyone's ideas (in contact improvisation, we don't have to respond to every offering), we should be open to explore why we don't agree (why our response did not meet the offering of another). We do this through researching further, finding out more, considering our practice further in relationship to others, asking questions (verbally and through our practice) and trusting ourselves to be ok with being challenged by the possibility of something other than us, an idea outside of our immediate or current frame of reference. If we allow ourselves to be in the flow of our own lives, of our learning, to be in conversation with each other, with our environment, we are able to at least notice and acknowledge change as possibility and make choices in our responses in relation to that trust in ourselves.
This short TEDTalk by Itay Yatuv offers some thoughts around flow, trust, respect, challenges and learning to respond, through contact improvisation.
What are your thought in relation to your own learning?
I've been thinking about how these words are meaningful in my life, through my practice, in all that I do. I'm not sure I can see these three things separately from one another, so I am going to explore a little of what I see as their relationship with each other.
Respect and trust for me, are earned through our encounters with others and through the flow was are a part of in our environment. When we meet others in contact improvisation for example (as I've been leading a lot of CI sessions this past week, I have been thinking through this practice particularly), we greet each encounter as a possibility. We offer and we respond, we give and receive information through a non-verbal dialogue with a shared understanding of their being respect for each others offering-gesture through movement. We trust in the environment we are in, co-creating it in the moment of our movement together. We trust in our own bodies, our relationship with gravity, with the earth and with each other. We do not know what is going to happen in an improvisation; that is the very beauty of it!! The word improvise from the Latin 'improvisre' means quite literally not being able to see ahead of time. We enter the space and in doing so we enter into the flow of possibilities; of change, encounter, interruption. We are in a continous flow of communication. Flow becomes an energy which supports us. It is not a thing as such, it is not related directly to time(space), but aware of the presence of flow within each of us and so within the environment we are able to be responsive to it, responsive to its energies, and responsive to change. With a respect for each person and our environment having something meaningful to offer, we can trust ourselves to enter the flow of the moment, to be open to the possibilities of the now.
These processes are not exclusive at all to improvisation, to dance, but this is how I have been thinking about them this week. Respect, trust and flow are a part of who we are as people, communities, societies, the environment, how was approach and are a part of the world around us. It is important to to respect the encounters we have in life, through study maybe this is with other artist-scholars work through literature, or direct engagement through practice. We should respect that this is their lifetime's work, something they are passionate about, have invested time, energy, effort, life into to explore how it is meaningful and are generous enough to share that with you through their writing and/or through their practice. While we don't have to agree with everyone's ideas (in contact improvisation, we don't have to respond to every offering), we should be open to explore why we don't agree (why our response did not meet the offering of another). We do this through researching further, finding out more, considering our practice further in relationship to others, asking questions (verbally and through our practice) and trusting ourselves to be ok with being challenged by the possibility of something other than us, an idea outside of our immediate or current frame of reference. If we allow ourselves to be in the flow of our own lives, of our learning, to be in conversation with each other, with our environment, we are able to at least notice and acknowledge change as possibility and make choices in our responses in relation to that trust in ourselves.
This short TEDTalk by Itay Yatuv offers some thoughts around flow, trust, respect, challenges and learning to respond, through contact improvisation.
What are your thought in relation to your own learning?
Sunday 3 March 2019
Theories and Frameworks...the evening discussion
Lots of great areas came up in this evening's Open Discussion group.
I want to offer a brief summary here and some provocations for you all to consider further and share your thoughts through your blogs (please do add your blog post in the comments below here).
The theme of the discussion was Theories and Frameworks and we talked about some possible perceptions of what these are, how we can see them in our practice and through the modules of the MA. We looked at different examples for these and acknowledged that examples can come from both within and outside of our immediate frame of reference. See Adesola's blog from the earlier discussion on this today-
http://adesolamapp.blogspot.com/
For me a framework of my practice is Bartenieff Fundamentals (a movement system developed by dancer, choreographer, physical therapist, Irmgard Bartenieff, somewhat a bodily focused extension of her tutor Rudolf Laban's work through Laban Movement Analysis). Bartenieff Fundamentals offers me a way of structuring and a language through which to articulate my moving body through specific patterns (Bartenieff sees the body as connected through core-distal, head-tail, body-half and cross-lateral patterns in order to achieve total integration). The theories I am interested in are in relationship with this framework, theories of the body in movement. These theories look at space-time and our relationship to, with, in, as it. I am also interested in theories of improvisation developed by other practitioners, and what frameworks are used to speak of the moving body through these. Theories and frameworks can offer us ways through which to deepen our understanding of things. They can frame perspectives and allow us to question and challenge our own practice. I do not have to find theories that match my framework, I am more interested in learning more about my body as I read, and experience in practice, and see the theories as ways of opening new doors to more questions for me.
An image I like to think about learning and knowledge is from the kids movie Monsters Inc. where the opening of a door into an unknown place is like the opening of a book, the taking of a new class, the conversation with another practitioner , it can open the way to more doors, more questions, to alternative perspectives and deeper understanding. Bartenieff's work sees value in the opening of space in the body as opening greater possibilities for moving efficiently through the space of our environments. I use the imagery of tiny doors at the joints of the body with the idea that we try to open the doors to allow the breath to travel and flow freely through the whole connected body...
My provocations from this evening's discussion ;
- There is a need to challenge dominant discourses, how might we go about this as artist-scholars?
- What do you feel is the value of research (our own and the work of others)?
- How might we look at the between-ness rather than focus on the binaries of things (male-female, theory-practice...)?
I'd love to hear your thoughts...
I want to offer a brief summary here and some provocations for you all to consider further and share your thoughts through your blogs (please do add your blog post in the comments below here).
The theme of the discussion was Theories and Frameworks and we talked about some possible perceptions of what these are, how we can see them in our practice and through the modules of the MA. We looked at different examples for these and acknowledged that examples can come from both within and outside of our immediate frame of reference. See Adesola's blog from the earlier discussion on this today-
http://adesolamapp.blogspot.com/
For me a framework of my practice is Bartenieff Fundamentals (a movement system developed by dancer, choreographer, physical therapist, Irmgard Bartenieff, somewhat a bodily focused extension of her tutor Rudolf Laban's work through Laban Movement Analysis). Bartenieff Fundamentals offers me a way of structuring and a language through which to articulate my moving body through specific patterns (Bartenieff sees the body as connected through core-distal, head-tail, body-half and cross-lateral patterns in order to achieve total integration). The theories I am interested in are in relationship with this framework, theories of the body in movement. These theories look at space-time and our relationship to, with, in, as it. I am also interested in theories of improvisation developed by other practitioners, and what frameworks are used to speak of the moving body through these. Theories and frameworks can offer us ways through which to deepen our understanding of things. They can frame perspectives and allow us to question and challenge our own practice. I do not have to find theories that match my framework, I am more interested in learning more about my body as I read, and experience in practice, and see the theories as ways of opening new doors to more questions for me.
An image I like to think about learning and knowledge is from the kids movie Monsters Inc. where the opening of a door into an unknown place is like the opening of a book, the taking of a new class, the conversation with another practitioner , it can open the way to more doors, more questions, to alternative perspectives and deeper understanding. Bartenieff's work sees value in the opening of space in the body as opening greater possibilities for moving efficiently through the space of our environments. I use the imagery of tiny doors at the joints of the body with the idea that we try to open the doors to allow the breath to travel and flow freely through the whole connected body...
My provocations from this evening's discussion ;
- There is a need to challenge dominant discourses, how might we go about this as artist-scholars?
- What do you feel is the value of research (our own and the work of others)?
- How might we look at the between-ness rather than focus on the binaries of things (male-female, theory-practice...)?
I'd love to hear your thoughts...
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