Identifying Knowledge and Skills

Do I work within a disciplinary context in the arts? Or is my situation more

transdisciplinary?

To respond to this question I'm not sure whether I can be generic about an ideal job/past job or if I have to have a concrete actual job I can relate this question to... In the second option I would find myself in a tough situation as I'm currently un-employed, any comments from other students in my same/similar situation would be much appreciated... if I can relate to my last job I could say I worked in a transdisciplinary context as I was well insert into an organization where different disciplines where taken in consideration and where further experimentation by us (performers) was always welcomed.

What do I know? How do I know it? 

With this question I relate to what Rosemary's said about capability that have an element of grading in it and also to Stephanie's blog about how she listed her capabilities according to that.

What do I know?	Grading HOW I know it
Singing live	Proficient
Dancing	Competent
Acting on stage	Proficient ( language obstacle than can inhibit the capability )
Auditioning knowledge	Competent
Auditioning preparation and technique	Proficient
Communication skills	Proficient
History knowledge of MT	Competent
Physical abilities	Competent
Personal groom as a dancer	Proficient
Professional Networking	Competent
Financial administration	Proficient

Knowledge of organizations in the Industry What knowledge and skills do I think you will  need for the future?And what do I need to improve on? More knowledge on self-selling skills for auditions Tv screen technique Improved speech skills Accounting Further acting knowledge (theatre and films) Physical appearance and state ( Fit and healthy body )

Competent

4b : Develop a 'SIG'

I thought of creating my own 'Special Interest Group' after navigating through other conversations and not finding one that is close to my interests lately. 

I've interacted with other interests though, such as Stephanie's SIG about TV MEDIA and FILMS which I'm passionate about and always happy to share ideas and reviews on shows/movies seen or that I'm interested in.

I've although started a conversation about the importance of training and how that may affect your professional life especially when working abroad or with different ethnics, I called it  Working and/or training in different countries.

I hope this topic may interest others in my course and that comments and ideas will help me narrowing down a topic for my enquiry which is still far from the final choice. I did understood ( especially after the campus session ) that the enquiry needs to help me find WHAT IS MISSING in a my profession in order to become a better practitioner, rather than choose a topic of my interest but that may lead me to an answer I already know. I now developing my question's of inquiry to help me find out.

Adesola suggested that what we need to aim after this degree is to understand how we can complete ourselves as practitioners and our level of knowledge after our diplomas, in order to narrowing down our real interests and knowledge rather than having a broad knowledge of different disciplines.

Reading Staphanie's blog I realized she is a bit frustrated with her comments feedback as there aren't many other actors in the course and she is finding it hard not to share enough with people of her same interest. I can see her point as sharing thoughts among us is highly helpful and stimulating, although on the other hand I can see her interests being very clear as she is an actress and therefore wants to do straight acting (and now thinking more towards screen acting )...I'm in way jealous of this security and clearance of ideas she has, in my case my interests are different and multiple even if similar, I'm very interested in the Musical Theatre form of art that involves dancing, singing as much as acting therefore I find it hard to focus only on one topic and to find a plan of enquiry for my research.

Maybe MT peers in my same situation could share their ideas on how they found an enquiry that may comprehend the 3 disciplines altogether.

Hope to hear from some of you! :)

Campus Session...

Back on...:)

Today I finally made it to the second campus session for this module so I got the chance to meet Adesola, Rosemary and few of my course fellow :)

It has definitely been an intense day in terms of receiving information and brainstorming ideas. As I explained to the others today few life changes happening at the moment set me a little behind schedule but nonetheless I intend to get on the course now as much as I can.

What we discussed was mainly regarding part 2 of this module, Professional Ethics, and we start discussing ethics applied on a professional level.

Ethics = a right way of Behavior, in this case professionally.

What Rosemary pointed out was that ethics can be different for each different profession and it may also differ from our own personal ethic, so how can that affect our work?

We can behave in a good or bad way, in our profession we need find how to behave in a “good” way in order to follow our organization ethical codes.

She then she asked us to try to find our own ethical code within our profession and toward the topic of enquiry we had chosen, and that's when I had to drop out...Like I said I was a bit behind compared to the others and not having found an enquiry for my research yet, this task was a bit pointless, so then with the helpful advice of Adesola I manage to work a little bit on my plan for inquiry.

These are the VERY BROAD questions I came up with and I would be grateful to receive any type of criticism or advice...

1. Is it trues that training in a particular culture can be culturally biased?
   This came up while talking about me leaving Italy and deciding to move back to work in England. Seems to be very different the way Musical Theatre is viewed and thought so then I wondered whether it was restrictive for me to train in a different country and than trying to work back home...or is it because of the small community and knowledge of Musical Theatre that Italy has and that wants to advantage its own peers?
   
   
2. Is there a particular way, for a performer, to adapt when working abroad?
   My interest for training and working within different cultures was still going on in my mind so then I came up with this question, although realizing it may be too generic and without a real body of interest. Maybe I should work this differently...
   
   
3. Can a performer be influenced by the training that has been given at the point where becomes suspicious of other training systems? And can that affect the way we work with other people that come from different backgrounds?
   I think this would definitely need to be narrowed down more, as the question could have been gone further...can that affect the way the others work with us, becoming maybe too judgmental towards diversity? I very welcome opinions on this one.

4a: Developing Lines of Enquiry

In the past couple of days I've had great new inputs that came from some of my fellow students, especially from Stephanie and Mina that kindly and helpfully participate at my SIG Working and/or training in different countries.

I managed to ask myself few new questions that hadn't came up to me yet...

Mina interacted with me via my SIG sharing similar situations, she is Japanese and trained in the UK as a dancer. Her comments and thoughts reminded me how the characteristics of British Musical Theatre training has benefited me personally, and how the fact that I trained here may benefit me beacuse of the reputation British training has. So hers was a more positive view compared to my more negative one.

I also agree with her when she says most productions word wile are sung in English so I can take advantage of that. I here want to share a video she sent me of the production on CATS in Japan, and another one I found of the production in Italy. She believes the rhythm feels uncomfortable, and nuances of the words are partially lost...it would be interesting to have some opinions from others that don't speak those languages. What are your feelings hearing these?

Also Mark Iles helped me with my thinking process, he suggested me not to focus too much on what my Award title may be as that could take the interest off my research and could lead to a non very interesting enquiry to investigate on. That seemed to be my big frustration lately as when I first started  training I believed my hypothetical BA award would have been a BA in Musical Theatre, but now I wouldn't like to get type cast ONLY as a musical theatre performer, I would want to keep a future career open onto experimenting different things.


Mark, being a MT performer like myself, shared few concerns we both have; we both agree with the fact that musical theatre training can lead to not be taken too seriously by casting directors as much as straight actors, dancers or singers (who have been trained only in one specific discipline) do.


With Stephanie I argued the fact that being a non native English person trained in the UK, working here can be, for obvious reasons, harder anda restricting, but that I knew from the beginning, what I didn't know is how difficult it would have been working in my own country after receiving a different training from the Italian one, therefore feeling a 'foreigner' in my own country. Does that happen often or it has something to do with personal factors? Is the training system to blame or am I somehow trying to find excuses to my difficulties? Or could it be a bit of both?


These are the question I came up with after barnstorming and further analyzing what I've discovered through these suggestions, comments and own deepen reflection.

1. Is British Musical Theatre training considered superior to that of other European countries and what are the benefits/disadvantages of training in a foreign country?


2. Is British Musical Theatre training limiting job opportunities for a performer in other 


performing related fields such as theatre plays or TV?




3. To what extent has MT training become valuable for a different career path such as straight 


acting?