2D

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?
Music is a huge passion of mine, and it is definitely something that makes me enthusiastic. Everyday I have to listen to my iPod, and if I loose my headphones and have to travel it’s a nightmare. I have quite an active imagination, and when I am listening to my music, I always have a routine or something staged for that song! What really inspires me at the moment is the soundtrack to ‘Ghost’. I think the music is beautiful and I’m worried when I go to see it it’s going to be completely different to how I imagine it to be!
Someone who inspires me musically is Adele. Not only does her music inspire me, but she writes so much of it, you can really tell she means every word. I am quite a graceful dancer, so her music really suits my style of choreography.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your feelings or as found away to work around the sadness or anger?
Being a recent graduate and having a lot of opportunities whilst being at college, as teachers and students know your strengths to cast you for your ‘perfect’ roles it’s hard to come out into the real world and be turned down for auditions when you know you could play that role. It’s a mixture of anger, sadness and disappointment as it is easy to get frustrated with yourself. You have to be prepared for criticism and feedback, but when you receive none, and you just get a ‘no’ you have to take the responsibility to reflect for yourself, which is why I have loved journal writing. It is something that will become easier with time, when you learn more about yourself as a performer too.
I really admire Nick (who is also on the BAPP course!) and his perspective on auditions and how to not feel as angry with himself if you don’t get a recall etc. He doesn’t dwell on the audition, and learns from each experience by analysing the other performers in the audition, seeing how they dance and picking up hints to use for himself at the next audition he goes to. This helps keep a positive attitude when you get rejected!

What do you love about what you do? Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?
From reading (and listening!) to my journals, I think it became clear that I love teaching and passing on advice.
The most recent project at the Garrick, was a difficult number, as not only did we have professional dancers but performers who had a basic level of dance training. Doing Fosse choreography is so intricate so having the patience to teach all the details was a challenge but the overall result just makes everything so worthwhile! The adrenaline of making, not only the audience but the performers, happy with ‘All That Jazz’ just makes me smile!
I admire an old dance teacher of mine called Carl Parris who helped with the recent Garrick project. He clearly has the same passion as me and has been teaching for years. He has experience in the West End and I aspire to be like him. He always has time for everyone and will give specific feedback to each person which means you can work on something for the next class or rehearsal. His energy is always so upbeat and its infectious, there’s a lot to learn from him!!

What do you feel you don’t understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or who has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?
I don’t know if I do understand this or not, but I am not sure why I love dancing or why I chose to do it as a profession! Obviously it is something I cannot control and nothing beats the feeling I get when I perform and thats the reason why, but sometimes I feel crazy for going into such a competitive and insecure career! Contracts are so short, and the pay can not be lets say the best, but yet, it is such a competitive industry and it’s all for the love and passion of our profession.
This question is often raised when talking to out of work performers, and every time the same answer prevails; you can’t help what you love doing! So I accept just being crazy and just loving what I do!

The Garrick Theatre

So last night we performed 'All That Jazz' at the Garrick Theatre for an Apple corporate event.

I can honestly say it was the most amazing feeling, although I didn't realise how nervous I would get!!

Being backstage made me really remember why I love performing and the adrenaline was pumping!

I will upload some pictures when I get them!

2b....journal writing experience!

Starting a new job, and having to learn from scratch about pretty much every single detail has been a pretty interesting time for me to write a journal. It ties in nicely with my development at work and just shows me how much I have taken on over this past month or so! I am juggling between working at Apple, doing auditions and also being a key part of our ‘Stage Team’ at work. It has been the most stressful time for me post college as I want to do well in everything I do!

I am performing at the Garrick Theatre next Sunday for an Apple corporate event which I am dead excited about. We are doing ‘All That Jazz’ (obviously...as Chicago has just moved to the Garrick, how could we not?!) in which I am Velma. (Yay! Life long dream!) Whilst in rehearsals for this, I have found journal writing to be very interesting. I am also assisting the choreographer on this, so I get to teach and clean as well as be a part of the final piece.

I has been really rewarding learning from my own mistakes and reflecting on them, and actually enforcing my learns the next day! I mainly used the description and reflection method of writing, which really helped with the teaching and choreographing side of things. I learnt from my experiences with the first couple of days of rehearsal that I needed to be more patient and I got this from writing in my journal that the cast hadn't picked up the routine as quickly as I had expected and that had frustrated me. But on reflection, I realised just because I knew the routine from years before, not everyone would, and I had to break it down and teach it at a slower pace.

I have used most of the 9 ways to write a journal from the reader now; the only one I haven’t tried is the graph. For me, I don’t think this would be effective, as I prefer writing things down. (Although one day I did record myself speak on my phone, that was strange!)
The last one I tried, and the one I am going to talk about most in this blog, is writing from ‘another view’. I was dubious about using this method, but after reading Phil’s blog I decided to give it ago the next night. I decided to write as if I was my iPhone. I chose this because it’s always on me!

I was finding myself with the other methods of reflection, getting similar learns, and reflecting from the same perspective. I was however, amazed at how different I saw my day. I was telling someone else’s story and I think I found it easier to pull out something different, to lets say, the list format. Plus, I was surprised how into it I got!
For future journal writing I will definitely use ‘another view’ for another perspective, but I don’t think I will do it too often as I don’t think it would have as much of an impact as it did for me first time round!

WOW, time does fly by so quickly!!! (my thoughts and a little bit of task 2a)

So, even though I have been doing my uni work with journals etc...I seem to not have put any of my thoughts on my blog.
I know the reason for this is because I am writing all my thoughts on a regular basis as part of section 2, and assuming that everyone knows this!! (fail!)
I think blogging and my journal writing will become so much easier now to maintain as I am writing this blog to you all on my new shiny macbook pro :) it's such a joy to use, that I will want to be on it all the time, so never fear....my blogs shall be a lot more frequent from this day forward!
I also have downloaded the 'blogger' app for my iPhone, so blogging on the go will be so easy too!
It's something I would recommend to all smart phone users as I know I'm not the only one (from reading all your lovely blogs today) that is busy and finds it difficult to keep up to date!
The only annoying thing is that it will let you write a blog, but not see what other's have written...so good for keeping your own page up and running, but not so good for commenting!

Anyway...back to the task at hand, and I am actually really enjoying writing about my day. I have still only stuck to my format, and haven't tried other frameworks that are in the reader. At first, I found it difficult to convey what I had actually done in my day that was of any interest, but now with practice it has become so much easier. I've found I have created almost a check list throughout the day that I add to when I know I want to put something in my blog so I remember what I have done. (As often one day merges into another!) and already it has helped me and my organisation skills!! (bonus!)

I shall write another blog tomorrow as I am off to see some fireworks!! :D

CV (task 1a)

When opening my CV file up, I realised I hadn't updated it for over 6 months! I think this is the main thing to remember with a CV...that you must keep it organised and up to date. It is the first thing that a casting director will see, and to not be up to date can reflect badly on you as a performer but it can also be frustrating for the director as they cannot gather the information they need.
I am not sure whether to have my address and phone number on my CV as I would like to be contacted by email as my primary source, so any thoughts on if I should include this would be very helpful!

Here is a link to my CV on google docs:

CV

Photos (task 1d)

I had my head shots taken almost a year ago and when going back through them all, I have found pictures that did not reflect me as a performer back then and that I discarded, now suit me better!
I have uploaded onto flickr 3 head shots and a couple of on stage photos that show what I did at college. The link is here:

Emma's Flickr Account

I am going to add a gadget so the link will be easily accessible. I am surprised at how easy Flickr is to use as I haven't used this web page before. I particularly liked how I could create a set of photos so I can organise my photos.

I shall give you a sneek preview of my flickr album on here!

Web 2.0 and the effects it has in the workplace (task 1b)

Web 2.0 is a creation which has revolutionised the way the musical theatre and the dance industry works. Not only does it let us directly be in contact with casting agents and other performers but it saves a lot of time and money which performers tend not to have either of! Of course any aid can come with it's downfalls which I would like to discuss here as well but there is no doubt that it has completely changed the way we work.

Many things sprung to mind when web 2.0 was raised in our lecture. I know I use Facebook, Twitter, You Tube and other websites every day for long periods of time for social use, but as graduation drew closer I found myself using these websites for my career too. One example I would like to use is 'dance cast'. Dance cast is a Facebook group which you can be asked to join for upcoming auditions for not only dance jobs, but the look for singers, actors and extras too. The beauty of this is that the jobs on the page are not just for the UK but for all over the world, giving you sometimes details of the casting director, choreographer, producer which is amazing as it completely broadens the amount of jobs available to performers. Even better that it is all free and on a website I use everyday to chat to my friends and check out photos.

This however, does raise the point that can we now ever separate work life from home life? Everyone needs their 'downtime' and with auditions at the tip of our fingers can we ever relax? It's a hard enough industry when you are in class, and when you are at auditions, do we need to be reminded of it so frequently? Especially if we have a smartphone...which brings me nicely onto my next point. Accessibility.

With web 2.0 and smartphones you are constantly connected to these networking sites. This has a massive impact on the way we live, especially as a performer auditioning. We can be emailed/text/tweeted/skyped...or even be rung by someone(!) to find out about a casting. But it's not just getting a job that web 2.0 can help us with, it's also keeping that job and being organised. Rehearsal schedules, social meets, reviews and promotion for a show all use Facebook and twitter. Creating event pages and groups is an amazing way for everyone to keep in contact with each other in one communal place, which is the whole allure of web 2.0 that Tim O'Reilly shows in the reader; "The users add content to the site, and the more the users access the site and add data the better the site becomes." Saying that the more we add to a site, the greater the appeal to it as we can have an influence on how a page works.

I think that web 2.0 is a brilliant tool for performers, casting directors, agents etc as it gives us all a wider variety of jobs and clients in an effective way. Not only is it instant but it is free and quick to use! For me, the benefits outweigh any problem, as I would like to have as many opportunities as possible!