Beginnings

Your beginnings:I have under taken a number of creative processes exploring beginning. I am going to discuss two artistic projects that involved thinking about beginnings. Then maybe you can see if there is anything to learn from these practice-based examples that can be applied to the experience of your beginning the new term. Below I discuss some of this.
 But first something about beginning MAPP programmes at MDX. All you need in terms of information is on your Programme page. This is quite a different environment from the application process (which is on-line also). The Programme Page is on UniHub which is behind the University Firewall, so you need your University pass codes. It is in one place. We have tried to make it as simple as possible – like a one stop with folders for all the elements of the course on the same page. You need to be familiar with getting to and reading the UniHub for course information.  Next you also need to be familiar with getting to the Blogs which are on the internet in general and open beyond the University firewall, (especially the Supervisors blogs which have up-dates across the period of the course, and then the blogs of other students which is where the conversation happens.)  As you start, start with these tasks (UniHub page and Blogs). Being in touch and feeling you have all the information you need is key to starting confidently.  About beginnings.Working as an artist-in-school: during some project supporting arts in school curriculum I work with other artists. After the projects, we had a de-brief discussion. We talked about how our projects went in the schools we were in. The main point that seemed to come out of the discussion was that we all experienced more than one beginning. There was the official date we first went to the school – the official beginning. There was the moment when people in the school started to get on board, get used to us being there – the energetic beginning.Then there was also the point when things started to shift or change or be made – the effective beginning.There could be more, maybe think of kinds of beginnings you have experienced. Please describe them in the comments below. All three beginnings I describe above were important. They all supported the others happening. From this example applied to BAPP I think the important point is there is a start date September 17th 2018. Because it is Distance Education not much might feel like it happened. Not much might change – but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t notice its begun don’t wait for the energetic beginning to happen because you need to start engaging with the course (start) in order to get to the energetic beginning. Even if you’re not in the flow yet you still have to start doing something it will flow into the energetic beginning. The effective beginning might happen in September or it might happen in two years time!! Again, you can’t wait for it to happen before you ‘start’ doing anything. I learnt from the arts-in-schools experiences that You have to start to start.
Another time I thought about beginnings was a workshop with Oliy Cart who make work for young audiences – like I do. We were talking about how you draw an audience into the start of a show. We were particularly thinking about how with young audiences this might be an unknown experience. It could be the first time san audience member had experienced a show. Obviously, how it begins is dependent on the content of the show. But think for a moment about the kinds of beginnings of shows you have been in or seen. 

How would you categorise them? For instance: One of my current shows for young people the performers are ‘asleep’ on the stage so that the young audience can come in and look a round and look at the performers. This is to try to have the beginning as un intimidating as possible. 







In another work (Passing 1: I right my own story) I have done (not for young audiences) the performance start with half the cast taking their shoes off like they had just come home after a night out. 
I could say that in the first description (my current children’s show beginning) is about getting everything laid out – knowing all the bits involved. Applied to this course maybe it would be about looking at all the dates for things, the handbooks & the blogs having a look round them like sleeping giants you have not yet engaged with but having a look to understand what they might be.The second piece (with the shoes) began with an ending. You could apply that kind of beginning to the course by thinking about what you are building on. To start this course by thinking about what you have done, what you want to build on what good and bad things come with you as baggage. What do you want to take off and what do you want to leave on as you start this new episode?Have a think about the beginnings of shows you have done again and see what they could tell you about beginnings in general. Share these as posts on your blogs (please put links to the post in the comments below). It would be great to hear them because we would read about the kind of shows you’ve been in or the kind of shows you’ve seen/that have influenced you. But it would also be great to hear what they meant to you or what you learnt from the experience.
Adesola


Photo 1: Joe CulletonPhoto 2: Scott Lipiec

Student Voice - leadership and creation

Our course has posts of Student Voice for students on MAPP. This means working with the Student Union to feedback to us and the University about the course - so we can co-create the learning space we all share. This is a great opportunity to get some training on leadership from the Student Union too.

We need two people who are currently on the course to take up this post. The deadline is by January 30th so please comment below - Comment in general but especially if you want to come forward as one of the Student Voice Leaders.

Adesola

Welcome to Winter/Spring Term 2019

On Friday January 18th and Saturday January 19th we have welcome / welcome back Skype sessions. Anybody is welcome 

These will be at:

Friday January 18th  5pm (time in London)

or

Saturday January 19th 2pm (time in London)

Comment below to indicate which one you will attend and share any thoughts, tips reflections on starting back / starting the MAPP term.

Narrative Inquiry and Ethnography: where am ‘I’ !!

MAPP acknowledges that ‘I’ am in the situation through the qualitative nature of the methods you are encouraged to use, such as  Ethnography. Ethnography acknowledges a place for the ‘I’ in research. Narrative inquiry acknowledges the problem that the ethnographic endeavour encounters as it attempts to represent and communicate my embodied experience. 

The courses encouragement of the use of ethnography and narrative inquiry originates in an interest in better understanding the conditions of experience or embodied experience. Ethnography and narrative inquiry are used to acknowledge attempts to communicate across the isolation and immediacy of empirical agency (feeling). 

Ethnography and the narrative turn also allows your essay (for example) to acknowledge the Reader who similarly plays a role in the translation of meaning having their own continuity of experiences as they interact with the activity of reading of your work. In other words, ‘you’ are writing to someone about what you think. 

However, neither ‘ethnography’ nor ‘narrative’ are standardised terms therefore let us take a moment to define how they are used here. Classic Ethnography has its roots in nineteenth century anthropological research (Hammersley et al. 2007). Researchers such as Robert E. Parks and Frederic Milton, within what is now known as the Chicago school (1920 to 1950) began to question the location of ‘other’ cultures. As they started exploring groups within their own country and communities, they also gave ethnography a broader scope. 

The inferences of subject / object (observer / observed) of early ethnographic study were replaced by the idea we are all a part of an event. An idea that resonated with methods for allowing for the embodied in research. Today ethnography covers a range of approaches but central to them all is the researcher’s voice, thoughts and experiences being present in the data. The use of ethnography in research can acknowledge that ‘I’ am not an impartial observer but ‘I’ feeland this becomes a part of the situation/event (Clifford et al. 1986). To do this you can use your own reflective notes as part of the data and cite them in the same way you would cited participants’ notes or verbal comments. You also need to use first person throughout your work on MAPP.

Likewise, the narrative turnhas broadened from its early beginnings in 1900s where researchers attempted to give ‘objective’ accounts of events. As narrative became a credible method in research it retrospectively became a vehicle for the voice of the ‘other’.  The documentary voice of women and those who had colonising imposed on them had been captured in narrative accounts in the past and the development of narrative inquiry method gave new legitimacy to these accounts. (Clandinin and Connelly 2000;  Denzin and Lincoln 2000). Feminist theory particularly saw the significance of rethinking historical and social constructions by considering whose voice describes events and situations (Clifford et al. 1986;  Strathern 1995).

In the late twentieth century the notion of narrative inquiry was further interrogated by a crisis of representation that generated exploration into experimental writing pushing the boundaries of narrative by raising questions about how researchers can attempt to engage with ‘truth’ within a non-positivist paradigm. Within sports science and dance the problem of capturing the embodied experience is highlighted by the dualist informed divide between words and actions that a range of experimental narrative strategies attempt to address (Sparkes 2002). (i.e. they attempt to present the felt within the experience – this is why we ask for an artefact as well as straight written essay more than one way of explaining the complex experience of doing something - in the case of the final artefact case the experience of doing the inquiry.)

Bibliography

Clandinin, D. J. and Connelly, F. M. (2000) Narrative inquiry : experience and story in qualitative research,Jossey-Bass education series, 1st ed.,San Francisco, Calif.:Jossey-Bass.

Clifford, J., Marcus, G. E. and School of American, R. (1986) Writing culture : the poetics and politics of ethnography,School of American Research advanced seminar series,Berkeley, CA ; London:University of California Press.

Denzin, N. K. and Lincoln, Y. S. (2000) The handbook of qualitative research, 2nd ed.,Thousand Oaks, Calif. ; London:Sage.

Hammersley, M., Atkinson, P. and dawsonera (2007) Ethnography : principles in practice, 3rd ed.,London:Routledge.

Sparkes, A. C. (2002) Telling tales in sport and physical activity : a qualitative journey,Champaign, IL:Human Kinetics.

Strathern, M. E. (1995)Shifting contexts : transformations in anthropological knowledge,Routledge.

Knowledges ... (AM discussion group conversation)

AM conversation journey:

We made statements about communication of ideas (the topic of the discussion for today): 

• Ideas build a community – the responses back 
• There is a ‘Code’ used that is built up between the people communicating
• You have to reflect on and find the best ways to communicate your ideas to the ‘communicated’ 

We talked a bit ….

 ..And a bit more…. Cultures have particular ways to communicate and particular values in the languages they use…

We touched on things …

…We came to the University is a culture. Therefore,

• There is a community the university expects you to engage with (one of the members of that community is the literature). Understanding that community is part of having an MA.  

• There is a particular ‘code’ (format lexicon) the university expects you to use 

• You have to work at the best way to communicate your ideas within the relationship of the being ‘in the university’. In a way you are responding to the culture of the university.

The 'Professional Artefact' in Module Three throws the doors open on this an allows you to communicate using your professional community as the starting point.

But regardless of what community of people all looking at dance that you are communicating with you need to balance their needs and expectation with your own values. You need to question how you communicate what is being looked for buy the community with what you can’t leave out of the communication because of your own values and come to some justification for the route you take in your communication (essay, plan etc…) 

At MA level you are not doing something just because you are being told to do it. In writing your essay to hand-in it has to be more than doing it because you were told to do it that way. The essay has to involve an understanding of the community you are communicating to (the university). The understanding has to happen in order for you to negotiate what values and codes you use in the essay. Therefore the essay itself displays an understanding of University MA level culture. The ability to communicate something (anything) displays an understanding and a negotiation between yourself and the community of the ‘academic’.  There is an art to this. 

…the above suggests that the content is only part – showing you understand something is not just the context  it is embedded in being able to choose the appropriate modes for communicating it to the community you are in conversation with. 

We ended re-igniting our inner  ‘question-everything-flames 

Maria suggested if dance is a shape (like the picture) then there are groups of people looking at it through different facets (sides) of the shape. Just because you are not used to looking at dance through a particular side doesn’t mean part of the construction of dance isn’t also that facet. You might have looked at dance through one facet for a long time and now looking at it (for instance) through a dance-scholar facet is not what you are used to but in doing this you come to know the whole stone (dance) better. What makes it beautiful is there is more than facet to it. 

Please comment below ...

See below to for links to other peoples posts on the conversation too

Sunday Discussion Group: communication of ideas

This Sunday December 2nd, we have our First of the month Sunday Skype discussion group. Any module  is welcome. these discussion group are an important opportunity to talk and listen about the ideas you are working with. 

We are kicking off the discussion with 'communication of ideas'.

These will be at:

9am (time in London)

or

8pm  (time in London)

Comment below to indicate which one you will attend and share relevant thinking/doing you have been mulling, reflecting on particularly in terms of 'communication of ideas'.

Sunday morning analysis!!

On the Sunday morning Skype we gave ourselves the task of giving a definition to what analysis is in terms of the course. Each person on the call is writing a definition below in the Comments. we are hoping you will add your thoughts to keep the conversation going .

Here are the elements we felt important to include when considering what analysis is:

1) Analysis is a construction of meaning through a process of translation and interpretation.
2) It isn't something in itself it is created by elements of the research (the people, data, inquirer...)
3) it is a process
4)  in -> data, analysis processing  -> out.......Data under-goes a transformation. 
5) It is a bringing things together (to communicate something)
6) it is to be able to share where you are, to make the inquiry activity describable so you can share your thoughts. 
7a) it relates to the future (where things are going for you). 
7b) it is always emerging (emerging ideas).