Yesterday we had our first Sunday of the month skype chats.
I always feel the people who attend the skype sessions seem
to get so much out of speaking to other people on the course. In our community
of learners there are really interesting people with interesting and extensive
experiences in dance: from the owners of dance schools to teachers in large
institutions of dance to company directors and principle dancers in companies
and all this from people who are all over the world at the moment. It is really
wonderful to talk to each other. I
encourage you to join the next skype chat if you have not already.
We also had a morning
chat which I will overview here.
We talked about analysis. This was raised from the perspective
of analysis of your own experiences and history when writing the AoLs, in
Module One and also analysis of the data collected in Module Three. (Analysis
of your own interests, passed experiences and the inquiry process happens in
Module Two also). We noted that analysis happens across the course. I felt the
conversation moved towards realizing that to say analysis as if it were a thing
is not enough. In many ways one needs to be clear what you mean by it. Other
wise you run the risk of saying “I will do some analysis on this” without any
idea what exactly you will be doing as if by saying the word you conjure up
some event that will run itself. So what do you think analysis is, what
attributes does it have?
In the conversation we moved from thinking of it as
something that happens (ie one minute something is not analyzed and the next it
is) to thinking of it as a process. I called it a process of seeing possibilities,
and/or of seeing connections where you had not noticed them. Like a process of
opening doors to see what is behind them.
Thinking about analysis led to thinking about a number of
issues to do with voice. I think this is because to analyze something in the context of this course
involves recognizing you are adding your voice/ideas to the thinking pot. Of course we believe you
are anyway since you are experiencing through your body/eyes/life but recognizing
this and contextualizing yourself within your work takes a kind of confidence.
Confidence to be present in the work and confidence to know you don’t know
everything but that is ok, you can still be there. We talked about this
confidence. Sam talked about how strange it is however accomplished one is you
can still feel a ‘little girl (or boy)’ : nervous and unconfident. She is going
to blog more on this
Confidence is interesting from an embodied perspective (like
pain) it is one of those things that we can not feel in each other. So whenever
we are judging other peoples’ confidence we are judging our ‘insides’ with their
‘outsides’, which is not like for like.
Helen is going to post a little about the unknown and
confidence in terms of improvisation and how improvisation teaches us to be ok
with being in a state of response rather
than needing to know what is next. She talked about the confidence of accepting
the process rather than needing the conclusion.
All this brought up ideas about bridging gaps between
knowing and feeling – this can be thought about both within the context of
confidence and in the context of what we are doing when we analyze.
Sarah talked about the confidence and feeling, of seeing
your own writing as an authentic voice. If you do not write much in your work
or as a ‘dancer’ you might not see writing as a vehicle for your authentic
voice and therefore it becomes something you add-on to things or avoid doing
altogether (see not putting up blog posts !!!) but Sarah was saying like any
voice it needs to be exercised and that she had newly seen the blogs as a way
to practice communication through writing. Sarah is going to post on this:
http://sarahsulemanji.blogspot.co.uk
Maria
http://mariaranden.blogspot.no
is going to write further about
connections and just getting thoughts down to be able to look at what you are
thinking as it were. On her blog she has also written about the Professional Artefact
in terms of looking for thoughts on this so please comment.
Julie talked about considering the process and not jumping
to conclusions in a bid to feel something is ‘done’ or complete or must be
understood. Look at the comments below for more from Julie.
Suzy talked about fear of the unknown and also ownership of
your own thoughts. She has written about connections as a response to the skype
conversation
https://zsurcy.wordpress.com
What do you think…
Please comment
Adesola
