Liam Pentland

I am currently undergoing an adventure. A never ending journey of creating self expression through movement. Through my many years of learning different ways of moving, listening to a wide range of teachers and experiencing many different sounds and genres of music I try to keep my mind like a sponge, soaking in information and knowledge that I enjoy and admire whilst rinsing what doesn't serve me. Consciously or unconsciously, I select this information to create my own authentic art, which reflects who I am and where I have been. During this blog I would like to open a discussion on how being aware of your preferences, blurring boundaries and contrasting movements seem like key anchors when finding your own artistic expression. Reflecting on my past choreographies, similar choices seem to continuously show up. I decided to label these choices and allocate them a place in my imaginary tool box. Groove, Footwork, Floorwork, Isolations, Arm concepts to name a few. Experimenting and l

I have been looking through my blogs, the recent questions I created, feedback from people to come up with the award title I would like to propose. The majority of my questions seem to relate to me as a performer, teacher or choreographer. In the future I am looking to study my PGCE to enable me to be a teacher, therefore I don’t feel it is relevant to state “Teaching” within my award title. Due to fact I have spent a large part of my life improving my knowledge as a performer and choreographer, with trips to LA, choreography workshops, A Level and Professional and Nations Diploma in Dance, I would like to propose the award title:   BA (Hons) Professional Practice in Performing and Choreography   Please let me know what you think?

  “Lets Work Together” With my SIG group I would like to discuss topics around professional and community dance, as these are two topics I am involved in and passionate about.   Below you will find My Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn page. I have set up these accounts so that we have no problems communicating. I am also interested in being part of other SIG’s so that I can help debate and share my ideas on topics I am interested in. If you would like me to join your SIG, please leave me a comment below with a way of communicating with you. Facebook: Liam Pentland Twitter: twitter.com/LiamPentland LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/SIG-Performance-Theatre-arts-Education-4665053?mostPopular=&gid=4665053&goback =  

Here I teamed up with member s of my SIG to see how we could develop my questions, so that I had a more thorough investigation. 1)       In what order do I label my professions? Do I label it in order, starting with the profession I believe I am highest in or do I label it to benefit the job I am applying for? When we discussed this question a good colleague and friend of mine, Jon Broni raised the idea that I ask them 2 simple questions:   How would YOU label my profession? E.g. Teacher/Dancer/Choreographer Why? I felt this was a very good question to ask because here I will find out other peoples perspective of my practice, which will help when promoting and selling myself. Also, by asking people” why?” I will then get given a reason, which should answer the question “How do I label my profession?” This way I can calculate how people label professions. I was also thinking of asking another question along with this being “Would I label my profession different

  1.        In what order do I label my profession? Do I label it in order, starting with the profession I feel I am the most strongest in or do I label it to benefit the job I am applying for?   2.        Does a strong dancer mean a strong choreographer?     3.        Does a strong dancer mean a strong teacher?   4.        Is teaching seen as an easy way out of being a performer?     5.        Does a teacher with a degree, result in the teacher having more knowledge than teachers without a degree?   6.        Is there an age where dancers should stop performing? Or are you as old as you look within the dance industry?   7.        Is social media becoming a better way in which to promote you, than the usual way of working yourself through the industry?     8.        Is it more marketable to be a choreographer who has one very unique and defined style? Or a choreographer who doesn’t have a unique style but can choreograph too many

For me to answer this  question:" Are there any ideas from work based or organisational knowledge theories of learning that could be used to understand your own professional inquiry?" precisely I believe I have to categories my profession into 3 sections; Dancer, Choreographer and Teacher. As a dancer my job is to retain choreography quickly, execute movements precisely and to perform in a professional manner. I am currently training in two of the biggest studios in Los Angeles, USA and I’m learning that being a dancer is a state of mind that must be programmed into your brain through training. It takes time and a lot of classes to train your mind to retain, execute and perform efficiently. I see this whole process as a sector named, “Being a Dancer”. I believe the learning tool here is to analyse different methods when picking up and executing, and decide on what methods work best for you.   I have been critically reflecting my performance when training and came up w