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! :)
Hi Laura - I think you are right to try to identify 'what is missing'....I am not sure whether the academic advisors would agree but I have been trying to look ahead to the future and identify what skills or knowledge are missing to help me get to where I want to be. Just as an activity...why don't you try to do some brainstorming about where you would like to be professionally in say, 5 years time, and then identify what is stopping you getting there? Keep taking your questions to others and asking their opinions and I am sure you will find your ideas getting clearer. I don't know how long you have been in London or how many contacts you have here - but remember you can also ask MT people in modules 1 and 3. If you don't already follow it, check out Mark Illes' blog - he is MT and always seems to have great ideas.
ReplyDeleteHI Stephanie- I did check Mark Illes' blog since day 1, I only find that I'm not "that musical Theatre" as he is, I mean that is my main interest but I would want to keep my enquiry (and my award title) more open towards different paths, I'm afraid that having a BA Professional Practice in Musica Theatre would limitate my possibilities to work in different areas of the performing industry...
ReplyDeleteAs i previously told you, I do feel a strong interest towards the acting side of being an MT performer and I wouldn't mind to have experiences as a straight actress...can a title like BAPP in MT would limit my job opportunities? Are casting directors a bit restive towards MT performers when auditioning for plays? Aren't we supposed to be prepared in the 3 disciplines as much? Or do they think we may be superficially prepared on all the 3 disciplines?
Without realizing I've just produced lines of enquiry I could keep up for further achievements in term of finding my Enquiry....I have to admit that comments and sharing thoughts among us (peers and stuff) is extremely useful and compered to the first module I feel in this one communication with others is fundamental.
Please let's keep up and do not hesitate to share some of your queries to me as well, as it seems you are mainly "helping" me and I'm not doing as much towards your Enquiry :P Have you come up with your final one? Also do you think it would be useful to meet up in person to work on our ideas?
:)
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Laura. It's been interesting reading your blog. I understand that you don't want to get type cast as a musical theatre performer and I think that is a definite possibility. There does always appear to be a stigma attached to the name. I wonder why that is?
ReplyDeleteAs you know from reading my blog I am looking at the way musical theatre performers are trained. I do often wonder that by training in all three things we become less good at each one individually and therefore aren't taken seriously.
I think if you are interested in acting in musical theatre then why don't you investigate that? You don't have to have BA Professional Practice (Musical Theatre). You could have (Acting in Musical Theatre) or (Performance). I would say don't get too caught up in your award title though. Investigate something that you are actually interested in. You don't want your inquiry to be too general or it won't be important to anyone and then what is the point?
Why do you think it is that musical theatre actors are taken less seriously that straight actors?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark, thanks for your comment..yes you definitely got my point on what is my frustration at the moment and why I feel a bit stuck with this part of the module.
ReplyDeleteI think you asked me a 'pseudo question' in the end, you partly answered the question yourself. The way we got trained isn't necessarily focused on only one discipline but it gives us a good bite of a bit everything, it is normal than within the training everybody find his/hers strengths and weakness, but I always believed that was what made us "all round performers" opening up more job opportunities than someone that would get train on only one discipline...I'm kinda questioning myself now...Do I still believe that? Is it really true?
Although I do remember when I got a job for a cruise line, the casting director ( who is American ) was thrilled by (these are his own words) how English people are really capable at doing everything ( singing , dancing and acting ) wether the American are really good but only at one discipline at the time...Of course this was his very personal opinion but I remember being very proud of the way I was trained and I like to dance, sing and act as much! :)
Maybe I should focus, like you said, on something that interests me in the small scale, rather than thinking of an enquiry that could represent my final award....still brainstorming...