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?

Indispensable tools and sources

With my previous blog, I've realized my current networks are not as strong as when I was in London. Although we now have several and well developed different tools to help us keep the networks up. Extract of my journal: 

April 28^th 2011

“...What I would have done without the Web 2.0 achievements? How could have I embarked onto this course experience without the use of it? As a distance learner this would have been impossible....I received the info about the BAPP course through an ex schoolmate via Facebook; keeping her into my networks gave me the opportunity to know more about it... Web 2.0 indispensable for Professional Networking....”

We are not limited to radio and TV anymore, we can now reach information and networks at a greater speed. For example, how before we could have listened to a radio advertisement about an upcoming new show, without the opportunity to now more about it, and how now, through the internet, we can research and reach the font, share information with others, interact with the source via emails (sending our cv and photos), phone numbers and address.

For a deep understanding of what I mean when talking about communication development, found through the 'Professional Communication Technology Reader' :

“At it simplest level, web 2.0 takes communication within a network from a traditional one to one basis (where I might send a letter to you) and the one to many (the use of mass media such as TV and radio) to a many to many approach, where thousands of people may read and interact with each other over a single blog or one specific YouTube video. The types of communication extend beyond the call and response model of traditional communications practice.”

Now the speed of communication has extremely evolved and has become vital for our profession, and most importantly, has improved the awareness of employers on their potential employees.

Reading Stephanie's blog made me reflect on how before, to get to a potential employer, there was a long and at times unreliable waiting time, having only the Mail as a tool of contact available. 

3c: 'Sources of Information'

My 5 Most Important Sources of Information

Web:

For sure I can firstly think of the internet, I cannot think of my professional networks without thinking INTERNET. It has become the most important and reliable source of information for what it's happening in the world, for castings information and to keep evolving my knowledge in this fast changing era. I constantly use Google for any research I do, now many Italian casting websites, when in London I use to daily visit websites such as The Stage, Spotlight and Equity.

I now wake up and my computer is already on and my Google mail page has already opened. I almost automatically open my Facebook page and Skype. I'm extremely relaying on this sources and sometimes it's almost scary how much the internet is part of my everyday life; without it, what did my previous colleagues do? How could they keep in touch so constantly with their net of friends and work related people and with what was happening around them? I consider myself very lucky to be a professional in this technologic era, the only down side I can think of is the sometimes 'to easy way' we have to keep in shape in this profession. The risk could be to get too sluggard and loose drive to be active. 

Word of Mouth:

Surely the more antique but still effective way to receive information. Although, returning on how important is the internet for my networking, I get most of my 'word of mouth' information through the web being far away from my school mates and friends in the performing field.. I keep in touch with my colleagues around the world through Facebook and Skype, that update me with what they are doing and with new auditions/show they know about. We help each other out since we still are in the same hard situations of finding jobs....I can already tell that who is already well established in the business tend to not keep in touch as much, I believe it's something that happens automatically when busy working but reconnecting to what I said in my previous blog entitled Cooperation about acting the same as a professional and as a person, I still hope I will try to give information to friends that may need it regarding jobs and castings I might know about.

Television:

Especially since I left London I tend to watch Television as a good source of information to especially enrich my acting skills. I don't focus on Italian TV but actually I keep connected with Americans and British TV series and programs. I struggled to watch a movie doubted in Italian from English, it's very hard for me and watching news and TV series in their original language keep me fresh on the language that I so hardly learnt. 

I like to see the differences between Americans, Italians and British actors and singers and I use this source to learn as much as possible the good and bad of their artistic differences. I love the American's voices and exuberance in performing, but I still often prefer the acting skills of the British. I,unfortunately, have to say that Italians are generally not the best on these skills, especially for new and young TV series's actors. But I can always look at the 'bigs' we had in our acting history, famous actors like Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gasmas, Sofia Loren, Roberto Benigni among others.

Magazine/News Paper:

I like to read and I like to read show's reviews and about new movies, books, plays, shows out there.

I also found different auditions and courses informations I was interested in. Again in London I was subscribed to the News paper The Stage for a time period of a year straight out of college. It was full of informations on castings and on 'who was doing what' professionally. It has been extremely important for the first months out of college. I actually believe it's on this paper that I found out about the cruise ship audition I got a job from. So big thank to that!

People I've worked with:

It's a bit like the 'word of mouth' source but with the difference that in this case I gain informations from people I've worked with and that I may not have a close relationship with, like casting directors, a costume designer, a photographer, a previous Employer so not only regarding my performing net but also for normal jobs, an agency I've worked for...I recently got given a job after having worked for only 1 day with an event agency, and another job for a TV commercial from passing informations from one agency to another...so here again work ethics come in, a good 'performance' with a job may always link you to something else that receives good references from a previous job. Never end up in bad relationship even if the job hasn't succeeded your expectations.

I was happy to read that also Stephanie isn't an iPhone user yet, although we can definitely see its benefits through iPhone applications. I don't have internet on my phone so I can't be connected at anytime which is a down side of this very technologic world. I should get on it so that I can always read my emails and, for example, in an audition situation, have the venues addresses and pone numbers easily at my hand...instead of having it to writing them down on a small piece of paper that very often GET LOST!!! I speak for experience...

3a: Current Networks

 

Current ways I use the most to network are through:

• Web
• Emails
• Phone
• Facebook
• Friends
• Word of mouth

I can definitely think of a way that a practitioner more experienced could have using their networks, which is the connections you create and nurse throughout your career with the people you get in touch with. 

I can think of when I was in college and the same Musical Director would get asked to direct our shows all the time, as he would always succeed the expectations of my school Principal. Or when I worked on ships for the first time and then after that how I struggled to get given another contract again, as there were so many 'veterans' that had worked with the company before and that would get the job first only because already well established and known by the casting directors and the creative team.

Or having an agent. When you are an established working performer, is more likely that you have an agent by now that connects you with jobs and raise your opportunities of work.

I believe I tend to use, within my social networks, a good verbal contact to expand my social net. I would probably benefit from it using the same approach within my professional networks. I think I have a good quality of being extrovert and positive towards meeting new people. Of course when underneath there's no real reason to 'force' myself to be liked by someone that could be a potential good link to my professional network, it's way easier to do. It could be for me a challenge to try to relate to a professional contact, the same way I act in a social situations. I think I could benefit from this.

An ideal network would look to me like a place where we can go and simply relate and share informations to each other. Something as serious as a place of work but instead of doing something for a job we already have, socialize and make connections in a place where everyone is there for the same reason, to expand their networks raising the opportunities for future jobs.

In order to do this ( which I know it's a bit unrealistic) I  would arrange similar situations where people from the same field of work can share ideas. I could think of organizing parties, social situations with a topic of interest, like the launch of a new show, a charity run o music gig...I'd always liked to be the one organizing for others...maybe it could also be a second career path I could keep in mind that can always be related to my actual professional practice. ( just a thought! )

I think I need to use more social networks like Linkedin to expand my current networks. I've just started to use it and I could notice there were many professional friends that are already in it and that are benefitting from it. I tend to start something and then not really get deep down into its meaning like this social network site that I still only use very little. Also I don't really know how to get in touch with others in the net and how I can get them to see me more easily. This is something I need to work on and explore more.