Critical Reflection on my Professional Practitioner Inquiry

Module 2 has created pathways in developing my inquiry. I have discovered more about my practice (dance) and its environment through a challenging new phase of my life, unemployed and injured and thus from an outside perspective, with the support from various fellow dancer friends and teachers at the UCT ballet school and worldwide. By finding out other theories on research, being actively involved in discussion groups, and most importantly questioning about the professional ballet world, I have been able to have a clear vision of an inquiry I would so love to explore into and share- the deeper meanings of why ballet dancers enjoy dancing so much, and what are their inspirations and motivations to keep them going? The tasks have helped tremendously in its development.

Part 4- developing ideas

Professional inquiry is a ‘way to learn about what you are doing.’ The three distinct learning mechanisms that helped with the development of my inquiry were:

·      Work Based learning-idea came about gaining some invaluable experience within a work-based environment.

·      Double loop learning

·      Transdisciplinary

I developed lines of inquiry in Health and Fitness and Artistry vs. Sport. Though seeming quite far-fetched from the final inquiry, the discovery process brought me to the finished product:

·      Creating mind maps all relating to the idea of my enthusiasm in a well being of a dancer, mentally and physically, to find inspiration in the explanation of why I love what I do.

·      SIG groups- looking at others’ questions

·      Watching the Cape Town international Competition, but most importantly whilst injured

·      Light bulb idea

I was able to gain more insight from the SIG groups on my decided topic as well as from some other ballet dancer’s responses. I surprisingly gained thorough feedback, picking up on key points in their reasoning to dance, the motivational aspects as well as arising problems.

I used some of these key themes for researching literature:

Þ   Music is a known factor of inspiration, looking into more scientific articles to gain reasoning behind this wonderful relationship of ‘moving to the beat’ and why it happens.

Þ   Anthropology en Pointe is a blog all about motivation and ballet dancers:

o   Numerous topics discussed relate to my idea.

o   Explores the possibility of dancers being able to relate to  ‘Maslow’s hierarchy of needs’ where this profession is believed to provide us with every need categorized in this pyramid.

o   Biggest inspiration to create a video footage as part of the finished project.

Þ   Motivation itself is what keeps a dancer going through everything, which could easily link to the various ‘theories of motivation.’

I thus realised the fundamental reason to dancing is the enjoyment, therefore narrowing it down to why dancers enjoy dancing.

Part 5- Ethics

By first distinguishing how ethics is involved in my profession, to researching what is expected opened up my eyes to what ethics entails. I learnt about the connection between ethics and morality, relating to not your individual self but also in a professional environment. Researching more into the ethics in professional dance, I discovered the idea of sticking to basic moral grounds to then be able to work around the rules for the greater benefit. Therefore being able to move on to using this knowledge for my own inquiry.

Part 6- Planning Inquiry

Before going into too much detail about the tools of inquiry, I had decided to use a more qualitive method for my inquiry- feeds off personal experiences, feelings and opinions. After reading about different tools, I decided to use interviewing as my main source of data collection as well as surveys to initiate ideas, and literature sources to gain more knowledge and evidence about the topic.

From testing the pilot interviews I was able to find out my approach to anaylsing the information, gaining advice and general sub-topics.

Further responses- injured perspective

Got the MOST amazing feedback from a great dancer on her views, and from the perspective of experiencing a long term injury...

Dancers and particularly Ballet Dancers find their happiness through dance from such a young age. We are almost addicted to it. It’s kind of an unhealthy obsession being a professional dancer/athlete. You’re addicted to the endorphins and the feeling of working really hard. As dancers we always want to impress people and basically be able to show off and feel special. We therefore, tie a lot of our happiness onto being successful in dance because that is all that we have known for so long. It’s a clear path to a future from such a young age that when it's taken away from you for reasons beyond your control, such as injury or developing the wrong body shape, then you can be left kind of shell shocked because you just don't know what else to do. Body shape generally starts from about puberty so it is not as hard to deal with as say a life ending injury that can happen at any point in your training or career. You don't know what else is out there and you have never had to fully face what you would do outside of dance. When your friends aren't faced with that kind of situation then you feel isolated from them too and you don't have anyone who can relate. Often even people who have been injured in the past soon forget how hard it was for them or there experience is totally different to yours. Friends outside of dance will show perhaps a bit of support over an injury but when it is long term, even dancer friends who have had injuries begin to lose interest. With major injuries that require an uncertain and prolonged recovery period, you are mainly scared about the fact that you don't know if it will work if you choose to continue with dance and that scares you because you don't want to get your hopes up again only to feel what you think will be worse than what you are already feeling- a betrayal of your own body. It is a natural self-protection mechanism to be doubtful and scared of an uncertain future. What you have to remember as a young dancer is that a lot of people our age don't know what they want to do with their lives and that’s ok. This is why it's so important to find yourself outside of the dance world. I really believe it’s important for you to do some extra reading and try to force yourself to look into everything. I understand how draining it is to feel depressed from injury and all the associated negativities that it comes with and you just want to ignore it and distract yourself or go to sleep however, it's only you who can force yourself to get out to this place in your head. It is important to make use of your time off. This can be by exploring other interests (which can be anything-photography, art, science or writing). Whatever helps you grow as a person, will help you grow as an artist. And this is what separates the ranks in the companies and gives a person resilience. Life experience makes you the dancer you are. All dancers reflect their personality and growth in the art form. It is the rawest form of human expression because it is literally your body expressing idea or message. This being said-once you reach a certain point in your rehabilitation it is most certainly a full time job. Most people do not appreciate this if they have not experience it. Recovering is as tiring as a full time curriculum. Motivation can come from other inspirations in life. Perhaps you can be inspired by other athletes-most of whom have overcome adversities to reach the levels they are currently competing at. This can include other dancers. I remember reading articles from Jenna Roberts and Jamie Bond from Birimingham Royal Ballet that really inspired and humbled me. When you have gone through a major injury and rehabilitation you become a much more mature dancer. You have far more appreciation for the art form and freedom of performing it. My point is basically this: Adversity makes the dancer. Injuries can be a blessing in disguise. This is all from an injured perspective however I can say that my motivation lies in all that I have learnt from my injury. I am fascinated by the mental and physical link that dancers entwine with their bodies through dance. I think it is extremely humbling to work as hard as we do. I love to see intelligent dancers working in class. There is always that unobtainable perfection that we are striving for. As much as I believe it is important to find yourself outside of dance-I know that it is a major part of me. It has molded me into the person I am today. I don’t believe we can ever really separate ourselves from dance as professional artists, as this is a way of life. It is impossible to have a work life and a personal life as often this is completely entwined. This can be hard. But the bonds you form with people are often stronger than many people experience. Dance inspires me to better myself. It has guided me for most of my life and will continue to guide me into the future.