Sophie Douglas MA Professional Practice

A number of lines of inquiry seemed to emerge from the Skype discussion group on Sunday; the mind-body presence of self in our training and current practice, and the notion of expectation, evaluation and assessment stood out for me.  Both topics have continued to feel pertinent to me this week. With one of my freelance hats on, I'm starting to rework a piece of choreography created with and for the youth dance company I work with. This time round, the cast has changed, and it's been months since we've rehearsed the piece.  During the youth company session yesterday, I found myself opening a discussion around our expectations of reworking the piece and I found myself trying to strike a balance between the expectations I have of myself,  the expectations of the performers, the expectation of the audience, and the expectations of the producer/technical team I work alongside to make the performance happen.  To a certain extent, I can adopt strategies which support me to manage

Lots discussed during last nights's Skype call centered around the notions of knowledge, learning and information.  Part of the conversation flowed between ideas around embodied knowledge, and the challenges around capturing, analyzing and finding or making meaning from our lived experiences. I've continued to think around experimenting filming parts of practice, as way of capturing data to reflect on for the purposes of my studies, and the inherent advantages, limitations and ethical considerations around that.  Many interesting questions around the relationship between performing artists and audiences came to light after Rhoda shared her emotional response to being filming during a performance without prior permission or consent, and it's jogged my memory of Anna Halprin's notion of 'witnesses' (Halprin, 2019), which I'd like to unpack further. In her writings about her creative process, Haplrin suggests that whilst an audience member might come to a perfo

This week I've spent some time reading over the proposal I submitted at the end of module two. Firstly, it's interesting to reflect on how, the closer I edged towards the deadline date, the more challenging it felt to tie things together, to have actually have something to submit that reflected my journey across that module in someway. Perhaps that sense of struggle is rooted in an understanding that actually, the learning doesn't come to end just because we have to meet a deadline! Secondly, I've understood that writing from my practice is integral to my learning on this programme. I can have a tendency to loose my own voice behind the academic language I'm grappling with around my subject area. I'm approaching this term having heard this very clearly, and moving forward with an understanding that our own voices are absolutely at the core of our research, and that the literature around our subjects supports us to contextualize what we are exploring/investigat

Settling back in.... It was good to reconnect with the MAPP community during the 'Welcome Back' Skype call last week. Whilst a lot of the info talked about wasn't necessarily new, I was encouraged to hear it again from a more confident place this time, and hopefully this means approaching module 3 with a little more clarity about what I'm interested in/passionate about/curious about/familiar with or inexperienced in.  I thought I'd share a few things that I've experienced over the summer as a way of framing this blog post. Walking, noticing, thinking.  I recently visited an exhibition by a local artist, Tony Kerrins called  Walking and Drawing . Since relocating to the SW and inspired by his love of the coastal and rural landscapes in Dorset, Tony exhibited a collection of paintings, drawings, notes from a sketchpad and prints; most of them beginning with a walk. I was particularly interested in his approach to creating work, sometimes getting out a sketchp

It felt good to reconnect with the MAPP community via the welcome back Skype conversations last week. I've recorded a couple of key points that felt significant as I move into module 2; 1. Make time to study and stick to your deadlines, but don't rush. Many of us returning to study after the Christmas break reflected on how important it was to be disciplined and to stick to the deadlines we make for ourselves in order to complete the study to its fullest. With this in mind, making time for space, for wondering, for ideas to emerge - plan this into your schedule too!  2. Skype discussion groups. Whilst it can feel daunting to put your ideas forward in this way, the discussion groups provide us with a safe platform to practice articulating our ideas. To get the most out of this, I can prepare the things I’d like to say and share and take a look at others ideas before the call. I’ve missed connecting in person with others on the programme, and in a way these calls substi

I enjoyed connecting with fellow students and our advisers last night during the monthly Skype discussion. What seemed evident for all of us on the call regardless of whether we are coming to the end of Mod 1, 2 or 3 is that we were all in a reflective place; What is it to reflect? How are we making connections in our learning? How are we connecting our learning from one module to the next? I've taken away some interesting points from the call, and hope to be able to articulate them coherently on this blog post! Specifically with the written hand-in for those studying Mod 1 approaching, we talked about the value of zooming in and out of our thinking and writing and that sometimes, we have to step back to see the bigger picture of our learning. This can be a challenging and sometimes uncomfortable process because it takes time - time to make these connections and time to reflect on them. There was a suggestion to think about the process of the module as the 'event&