4c. Questions - Developed

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 differently depending on what Job I was applying for?” I believe these 3 questions are easier to understand and will give me a more precise answer, which should help me with my practice.

2)      Does a Strong dancer equal a strong choreographer?

I discussed this question with again Jon Broni, who is pursuing a very similar career to myself and Josh Ricketts a organiser who employs choreographers. Jon Broni strongly with the answer “No” stating that it is a totally different way of thinking from a dancer and a choreographer, which I also agree with. However Josh, never gave me a straight forward answer but what he did say which I found interesting was “A strong dancer who has good credits can be more marketable than a Good Choreographer with no credits”. This is due to the credits of the dancer selling to the public. People want to take that persons class because he has worked with huge names therefore he must have 1 a lot of knowledge to pass on and 2 his choreography must be good. Me and Broni both agreed with what Josh was saying about how the public interpretate situations like this. This made me think of another question I would like to ask to dancers… Would you prefer to take a class with a great Dancer, a great choreographer or a great teacher? And why? I think it will be interesting to see what people will decide and why. I also think this will help me with my practice a lot as I am finding out what dancers like in a class, which If I can then incorporate into my own class it will hopefully make my workshops more enjoyable and more popular.

This brings up my next question also…

 

3)      “Does a good dancer mean a good teacher?”

Again Me and Broni answered “No” with the same reason as in the previous question. Similar topics were raised within the previous question. Another topic that came about, from one of the dancers at our local studio, was that “If there is a bad dancer teaching us, then we must be learning movements incorrectly, which may enable us to pick up bad habits and could even course us injuries. So therefore, they must be at a good level in order to teach us correctly, as they must have the knowledge themselves of how to dance in order to do it.” I felt this question, on the other hand, was very true.  As I agreed with this I wanted now to see other peoples view and if people had another side to the question, there I adapted the question slightly:

“Do you believe a dancer has to be at a certain level before he/she can teach? Yes or No? Please explain your answer…

I feel that this question will also help motivate me within my practice to improve my dance ability further, so that this question hopefully doesn’t arise with me and my practice.

4)      Is teaching an easy way out of being a performer?

A lot of the students answered the question “No” as they see myself and other teachers around the studio bother performing and teaching. I felt this was good to hear as it shown that we do inspire the students , They said they believe it is good to be both a dancer and teacher as they know we have the experience up to date and they feel that we understand the industry well and as a result of this it improves us as teachers. But also made me think back to the last question… So does this mean a good performer is a good dancer? If the students believe we are better teacher because of being performers as well as teachers?

On the other hand on my journey as a dancer I have seen trained dancers unable to get work and then have turned to teaching as it is a way to still carry on what they love to do, however it is still there second option to what they really want to do, which is perform.

I feel this question is already bringing up lots of good debates therefore I don’t want to adapt this question apart from add to the end of the question… “Please explain you answer?”

5)      Does a teacher with a degree, mean the teacher has more knowledge

Even though I am taking a degree course I disagree with this statement and so did my colleagues. However recently I taught a workshop at a school I trained at named The Hammond and I the staff came a debate around the degree and what people believed about it. Most people agreed the same that when teaching dance (dance meaning movements) that the degree didn’t help at all. However some people stated that the degree was good in the sense of learning to sell your-self as a dancer/choreographer/ teacher etc. which I did agree with. Then again, some of the best teachers I have been taught by didn’t have a degree. To sum the debate up it doesn’t really matter what we think it, most of us have done the degree because we get told that the people who employ teachers, within schools prefer it and some people believe we can earn more money from it.

I have decided through looking into this question that I don’t want to ask the question to the students as I don’t want to put them off going to University as higher education is now becoming more and more important, therefore I will keep this question to people who have already made the decision and views upon university.

6)      Is there an age we should stop dancing?

Many topics came up with this discussion. Jon came up with the thought we are as old as we look, he did mention however that this is in the commercial industry. Which made me ask, does the age you should stop dancing, depend on what field of dance you are in? I asked this questions to my SIG, we all felt that Dance can last as long as you want it to, if you are able to teach perform and choreograph. Dancers tend to dance till their late 20’s, whereas choreographers and teachers can go as far as 80 years old, some even longer! A better question we thought to ask would be, What age do you think you will stop dancing and why? We also thought that it may help to add a little brief in with this question, just to explain that were are not talking about performing as they’re other aspects of dance which you can pursue.

7)      Is social media becoming a better way in which to promote yourself through the dance industry?

I feel this is a very good question in order to benefit my practice due to the fact currently I am finding social media a huge part of my success within my career so far. I actually came up with this question when I was talking to a friend in LA, who stated some people are forgetting how powerful social media can be. This friend is currently pursuing an extremely successful career, currently dancing with Justin Bieber, appearing in the finals of America’s Best Dance Crew (ABDC), International workshops at some of the biggest dancing event in the world as well as winning a choreographer of the year award. He also explained to me that he was chosen because of his popularity through social media to perform on Dancing with the Stars, where other commercial dancers had to audition to perform behind him. This to me is a perfect example e.g. how Social media is now becoming an extremely powerful way to promote yourself as a dancer and within this example more powerful than “working your way up” in the commercial industry. I personally believe in this question people will respond differently depending on their journey and experiences as a dancer. This question will help my practice as it will help me understand which path to focus on either the social media side or the “working my way up within the industry” side. I am going to change the question slightly. Is social media becoming more powerful than working your up the industry ladder with auditions etc. in order to gain recognition for yourself? I am thinking as well to ask this question only to commercial dancers/choreographers due to the fact I have not heard of an experience where social media e.g. YouTube videos have helped a dancer/choreographer in another genre of dance and due to the fact within my practice I am focusing on the commercial industry.

8)      Is it more marketable to be a choreographer who has one unique and defined style or a choreographer who may not have their own unique style but can choreograph to many styles of dance?

This question was again inspired by what I have acknowledged whilst in Los Angeles and through my own experiences as a choreographer. Josh, who employs choreographers from all over the world to teach workshops stated, that sometimes he feels the community want a choreographer because of their particular style and that is what they want to learn but other choreographer who has employed may not have a unique style but have many different styles they are able to teach in and he says he likes this as it bring more versatility to the workshops. Therefore I Josh’s eyes they both seem important. I am often told that I have my own unique style, and this is what makes me marketable. One of my dreams and goals is to become a choreographer for a professional artist. I have been listening to albums by various artists and I can see in my mind, different styles suiting different tracks, which for me then makes me believe I must become a more versatile choreographer and study other genres of dance in more depth. Also I have been researching commercial choreographers such as Brian Friedman and I not that they are very versatile, which I can understand as when you choreograph for something like the X-Factor where you are working with many artists, who all have their individual style, then obviously you can’t use one style to choreograph to all the dances, as they show will seem repetitive and boring. Jon believe for what we are currently doing our own style is vital as he believe if a dancer wants to learn a specific style then they will go to a specific class and if we have our OWN unique and individual style then if people want to learn it then they must book us. I feel all the points are valid and definitely help my practice. I believe the question already has brought up a great debate and has made us ask each other very interesting questions and as a result of this I don’t wish to change the question.

9)      What is more important image or dance ability?

This question again brought up many questions. Everyone in the SIG agreed that it does depend on the job you are applying for. In the commercial industry your image is very important and also in musical theatre as they are looking for characters just as much as dancers. This then brought up another question, which I am going to add into my investigation 10) is personality important within the dance industry? As character, is also about personality***. I have slightly adapted this question to appeal more to my practice. 9) What is more important in the commercial dance industry image or dance ability? However in contemporary dance image doesn’t seem to be as important and instead dance ability is. I am interested in speak to contemporary dancers their view on this to see if I’m correct. At the moment I feel my image is a weakness within my practice therefore investigating this question may help with that and will further my knowledge of the commercial industry to date.