Tuesday 2 April 2013

2c, Reflective Theory Critical Reflection on Reflective Practise

As a professional dancer i feel the top 9 skills to have are;

  • Organisation
  • Awareness
  • Discipline
  • Experience
  • Social skills, be a people person, socialise
  • Know how to promote yourself
  • Professionalism
  • creativity
  • And be able to constantly develop in your professional practice. 
I have never really thought about reflection but as a dancer/ performer we actually do this all the time.

 I feel that reflection is a very powerful way of learning!

As a dancer i feel i am constantly reflecting on professional work, weather it be whilst in the moment or weather you are out of it.

Example; Whilst at an audition i am an active thinker i am in the moment currently thinking/ reflecting to improve....... I want the job so i will pull out all the stop be on top of my game and actively think.
  • Dancers are very particular people; we like to get things right
  • we like to make alterations to suit the piece constantly
  • we criticize ourselves a hell of a lot.
We do all of these things because we want to be the best at our professional practice.

I am a very organised person and i take my professional practise very seriously Being organised i like to write lists a lot, and this is one way that i use daily to write.


Reflection is a key skill in this industry, and i know i critically reflect a lot.  I am a person who believes reflective practise is done every second of everyday subconsciously, we don't realise we do this as it is the norm to us.

David Schon believed in the idea of;

reflection in action........ reflection in the moment as something is happening
reflection on action..........reflecting after the event, looking back

These theory's are then furthered by by a man called Robert Kottcamp who believes that reflection in action is much harder than the second theory. However i tend to disagree with this statement as a performer/ dancer. I feel that when in rehearsals or auditions you reflect whilst in the moment you make things work for you, suit your needs. You act upon it in the moment not on action most certainly in action.

I have come up with the idea that

Rehearsals are Reflections   =    They make you improve on  


You as a performer feel that something is wrong so you tell the choreographer at the time you don't go home an reflect on it.

I am very actively aware of Reflection.

Whilst i was also reading the reader when i came across John Dewey's theory's,i found these most interesting. Dewey believes that reflective thought is a way of making us aware that we are having an experience.

"active, persistent, an careful consideration of any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it and the further conclusions to which it tends" (Dewey 1933)

I find this quote/ theory most interesting the way i interpret this is, he believed that social change was an experience and that if people had full experiences and full engagement in their lives they would be be better able to be part of society. This i completely agree with. This i believe is the core to try more in society and to expand on knowledge, a way of keep on learning. Once you have some knowledge/ experience i feel there is no stopping you, possibilities are openly endless to you, once the experience is in place there are then stepping stones for more and more experience.


My example;

  • I am professionally trained. I have the experiences and learning basis, i know my professional practice but until i have experience i can See the real  industry and gain my own experiences.
  • I gain experiences and off of one experiences more should happen but only if i make them.
  • I work professionally and experience grow
  • If i want to further my career i have my Diploma in place, to then further this i have to attend University to top to a Degree
  • I start a Degree to grow and learn more, obtain more qualifications
  • I them do a PGCE to hopefully teach
  • I then become a qualified teacher and pass on my experiences.

So hereby i show an example of the quotation this example shows persistence, myself being active, knowledge to support me further. In this 21st century there is no stopping experiences and more creative learning.

David Kold also had his own ideas and theories and developed the idea of a cycle- a learning cycle. I find this theory also very interesting and helpful and it makes me realize that i also can work this way.






As you can see that by this cycle i feel that i don't start at the top i think that i enter the cycle from the left just before the top. I am a person who starts to learn when trying out ideas this is active experimentation. This is my learning style.

Therefore Kolb has taught me about how i learn and what methods are best for me , and the tools for approaching experience.












2 comments:

  1. I like your take on David Kolb learning cycle, and your idea ' Rehearsals = reflections'.

    I wanted how you relate to muscle memory as dancer?, as describe by Tharp and Reiter, 2006, 'The creative habit’in reader 2. I wanted to know is it easier to dance without thinking? Could you remember the moves without seeing? I wanted to know because in my job I have come across two blind boys, and sometimes you look for different ways to teach, so the child is able to retain information and have fun too. Muscle memory is something I haven't really consider before I read the reader 2, but is worth learning more about. So very interesting in what you think?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello bernadette, thank you for your comments. its a hard one i guess myself i just feel the moves, if i mess up i just pick up where i am and feel my way back to the dance. However yes i like to see things infront of me many many a times hehe! thats understandable different ways and easier ways to get across to them, a fun way of learning! x

    ReplyDelete