Task 2a: Reflective Practice

I must say, Reader 2 was quite a hard one to get my head around, I found myself reading it many many times over and researching the different links to finally understand what it was establishing.

After conquering Reader 2 I began to realise the differnt methods used by different people to establish what we perceive as reflection and it's importance. We can see that having to use reflection in whatever method we see as appropriate for ourselves, it's so important in our learning. We have to :

"Find meaning and give meaning to what we are doing" in order for our development.

I can say that reading Reader 2 seemed almost a blessing, I learnt through it's content that "experiences are intelligible for you", that "the experience of doing something has and will give you knowledge". This seems vitally important to my goals at this moment in time, I have had to say to myself that I need to experience and do things OUT of my comfort zone, experience and do things I wouldn't NORMALLY do in order to progress and create self development. I can say that whilst being in America (since recording my journel) I have accomplished things I wished and perhaps didn't wish to do, that in turn has developed me, given me experience and progressed me. Things I wished to do have now been completed:

Headshots
Bodyshots
Showreel

With thanks to my boyfriend (whom I visiting in America) he is a videographer and photographer as well as a dancer, we have both mapped out and planned things that we needed to accomplish in order for my development as a dancer and what is crucial to my future contracts and vacancies.

It seems a little silly but I've also done things I didn't want to do, perhaps from a first thought, but with the nudging of my boyfriend and thinking to myself that I've never experienced anything like this I've tackled fears head on. For example, I went to Orlando's HALLOWEEN HORROR NIGHTS, which was absolutely terrifying, I actually cried at one point. Another fear I tackled was that of theme parks, I'd never ever riden a rollercoaster or even a remotely fast ride because of fear of being sick, but I said to myself you never know until you try, I LOVED the rollercoasters, the adrenaline rush gave me such a buzz. This is specific to the part where Reader 2 states that "open to finding" is so important, it means we are willing to learn.

Reading about the tacit knowledge seems very specific to dancers and my field of work. We definitely rely on gut feelings! Schon's theory of reflection in action and reflection on action seems like a good way of describing artistry. We seem to reply more on reaction IN action as oppose to ON action, even though we probably use both at different times depending on the situation. How something feels is vital to our learning and development as dancers. We are so in tune with our muscle memory as Tharp explains "her memory of movement doesn't need to be accessed through conscious effort". It's something that is already there.

I particularly liked Tufnell and Crickmay's view that our reflection doesn't have to happen as a written process, here they explain "in the rush and pressure of our everyday lives we easily become numbed, cut off from our bodies without a sense of the body, of sensation and feeling, we lose connection to what is around and within us, to the immediate and present moments of our lives". It's important that we listen to our bodies particularly as artists, to define our learning and development. I'm referring here to body movement; specific to my field in dance but keeping a journel can be in the form of drawings, writing, poems and sketches.

When I discovered that we'd be documenting journels, it didn't out me off at all, in fact I warmed to the idea more and understood it's purpose for professional practice.
It's very easy for me to express thoughts, I am an open speaker and writer. I haven't written or doodled, or stuck anything into my dance scrap book recently, but I keep that as a personal account of my dance journey, I started it at the age of 15 probably when I started attending theatre performances and after school clubs for dance then it continued though my training at 17, and after through the dark age of getting a first job, through to the fantastic moment finding out about my contract with carnival cruise lines. It is indeed a rocky journey, some highlights and some lowlights.

For this task, I have kept my journel writing through my iPad, as I've started this task since starting my vacation in America, it seems a plausible, safe device in which to document. I did want a notebook and pen to personalise but I've found out now that it's easy enough just to jot down the journel on here.

I like the journel account, it makes you write down things for purpose, for learning to reflecta and say "I achieved today". It makes you strive to achieve things in your day in order you can document them in the evening. It's a sense of achievement for me, as well as valued scripts you can look back on in years to come, let's hope the 2.0 tools survive that far!

So far I have kept up to date and been thorough with the content of my journel, I'm liking that I can put things down that reflect my professional development.

I'm not looking forward to experimenting too much with task 2b if I'm honest, only because I'm used to my own writing style, very descriptive and informative. But exploring the different ways in which you can record a journel will be vital to your experience, and this is all key to our development, so let's go for it!