a short note on the re-invention of the Rubik´s cube

So just a fast update from me after haven spoken to Paula yesterday and before jumping into a bus to drive to the lovely city of Heilbronn, where we will be guesting with "Blaubart" this week.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=UIM9bZPM4qM

I have been going easy on the Uni work, as last week-end´s meeting with my dancer friends as well as meeting with the managing director of the transition centre had really worn me out and I felt, like I needed to let things settle in my head a little, before pushing on.
I have a lot of information at hand now and I need to organise it and write it up in a manner, that is understandable to my audience.

Also on the matter of the audience of my professional artefact I have made some ground. The lady from the transition centre was also a great help in supporting my idea. As I am looking into what happens to dancers once their shelf-life has expired and they cannot dance any longer for various reasons, I have been looking at the theatre landscape in Germany in general and what funding is available, also to the so called "Stiftung Tanz Transition Zentrum Deutschland" that was founded in 2010 in order to assist dancers in their transition. I am hoping, that once my professional artefact is ready in form of a small booklet or flyer, the audience of dance performances (who generally seem to be very interested in that topic, as the question always has arisen of late, when members of the public came to watch rehearsals, etc.) will feel inspired to donate to the Stiftung, as it can use every penny available and I have observed members of the ballet-loving audience in Germany being extremely passionate about dance and happy to involve themselves in such matters where they feel they can make a difference by giving a couple of pennies.

I have also experienced some glitches (I would call them). Firstly I have not been sending out my survey, as I am too much of a perfectionist and keep on checking it and re-writing it and making a Rubik´s cube out of it. As I am not a professional social scientist, but rather a curious professional dancer I think I should lay off myself a little here. As I spoke with Paula yesterday- it is quite late in the process to be sending a survey out now, but through my discussion with the transition centre last week-end I also made some changes to it (in order to get some answers for them). I think my whole inquiry ought to be regarded as an update as to where things are up to in the world of transition in Germany and hopefully be seen as suggestions and inspiration to further research into the topic. (maybe I need to do an MA...after all?? ((O;)
I also made the mistake of giving the transcript of the interview I made to my interviewee. Enough said- as I want to stay within my ethical boundaries...but it has made everything somewhat more complicated and has also wasted my time, as I also transcribed almost every word that was said during the one hour interview I led. Actually in the Blaxter, Hughes Tight book "How to research" (2010) there is even a health warning to doing this....!! Oh...silly me.... ((O;
Ok. It´s all part of the learning process.
Keep courage and battle on, right??! So long....

don´t know, how he does it, but my canary always gets apple all over my desk

Because last night´s blog was written at such a late hour and I have a lot of crumbs in my head at the moment, that are waiting to turn into bread I am going to make another little entry at this point.

One thing I wanted to mention was the use of documents for qualitative data. Mr. Flick writes a great deal about it in the book I mentioned yesterday and I have been having some thoughts about it. 

Documents are a way of storing people´s experiences. In a sense they are the memory of our culture. Whilst some documents, say Anne Frank´s diary are of vital importance for the memory of the entire western world, my own ambling on in my adolescent journal about how terrible my dance teachers treated me, might be interesting to me one day and to a few select readers.

I have a book written 7 years ago, in which an author interviewed former dancers on their lives after dance. The book is written in narrative form, so therefore the accounts given have already passed through the interpretation and world- view of the author. Now, that I am analysing and using this document, the original experiences will again be interpreted once more by my own views and distorted by, what I am using this particular document for, in order to enhance let´s say a theory I have.

As I was listening to the radio this morning I came across an interesting project called "Highrise" from the Canadian National Film Board.

http://highrise.nfb.ca

I thought it represents a good visual to what I am trying to express with words, how the same thing, looked at from another point of view, in a different city, or coming from a different social background can look totally new.

Although I have not had the time to read it in it´s entirety I am once again taken by Peter Bryant´s latest blog entry. http://peterbryant.smegradio.com/?p=256

I would like to share it here with everyone reading this, because it offers great thoughts on the psychological aspects of learning and connecting to your fellow students on line- exclusively.

Thank you Peter at this point!

OK...nouff said....cheers for reading ((O;

that moment, you see that crumb you have been seeing sitting on your keyboard keys disappear into your computer

As I not only seem to be the only one panicking about the fact, that due to work commitment issues I am not blogging as much as I want to and probably should, I feel it unnecessary to mention here again, that we are all trying our best to put demanding dance careers under one roof with fulfilling elements of study. It is not easy, but a challenge we will one day be proud to have mastered!
Strangely enough I was relieved to find myself not cast in this season´s guest choreographer´s piece, because I thought that would leave me with more time for my work on module 3, but somehow dashing to the library to work in piece and quiet and then back to rehearsal again; or sitting at my desk post performance are not really giving me that calm I was hoping for either.
I conducted my first "proper" interview last sunday. It went really well and although it took me three days to transcribe I already know, what data to use and how. Although the act of transcription seemed a rather painstaking process I think it has been worth taking the time, as I was already able to analyse the data in my head. I can already see myself needing to knuckle down for december entirely to be able to complete my work to my own satisfaction...
I also competed my survey, had it checked by a sociologist, who in turn suggested I use another programme (I was using the monkey) that would facilitate easier evaluation at the end. However I am not happy with the amount of advertising in the final questionnaire, so I am currently putting the questions back into the monkey. Hopefully I can send the survey out this week-end.
As a great chunk of my Critical Review and artefact will be coming from the literature I have been reading I am not too worried about keeping the survey running for two weeks and conducting the second and final interview thereafter.

I have been reading a lot of Jennifer Mason´s book "Qualitative Researching" and Uwe Flicks "Qualitative Sozialforschung- Eine Einführung".
Both books I highly recommend. Mr. Flick´s book (which is of course also available in English- it was on the Module 2 reading list) expands a bit more on what Adesola wrote about on her blog about campus session 2. Ms. Masons´ book offers a more philosophical approach towards qualitative research and also has made it clearer to me, what "school of thought" I am from and how I want to bring that into my critical review.

I have also been having many thoughts on the audience of my enquiry. As the author of the book on dancers AFTER their active career suggested and recent conversations with peers and colleagues have also brought to light, along with my observations of audience members in the studio, I think it is necessary to inform the dance and ballet- loving audience that come to our theatre on a regular basis and bring forward a lot of interest as to what happens to us dancers after we have "passed our sell by date". I am thinking a little booklet that can be on offer as members of the theatre- going public attend a performance, maybe even sparking their initiative to donate to the "Stiftung Tanz Transition Zentrum in Deutschland" that facilitates the transition of dancers in Germany??
I have also identified family and friends of dancers- especially of those in transition, as a key audience.
So I think I am moving away more and more from the fact, that I want to improve existing possibilities for dancers, as a lot is being done already, it just misses the funding and the public awareness.
The end of a dancer´s career is also a subject that needs more attention in the dance world in order to prevent dancers of falling on their face- especially, when forced to quit unexpectedly, but there is only so much I can do in the format of this degree course.

This week I also had another brain storm to clarify, where I am going with this.
Out came a mind map...

...the topic remains in the centre (orange IKEA gel pen). Four pillars of what it´s about: 1-Where did it come from?, 2- What it looks like today, 3- The in´s and out´s of what´s available and 4- What do my colleagues know and think about it.
In green I added, what research is going into what pillar and then two more topics I am concerning myself with. What justifies a dancer´s right to ask for help (ethical and philosophical) and why is this such an important topic the German dance world (and audience, thank you very much) has ignored for too long?? Hope it makes sense..?

Please excuse my un- academic style of this blog. It is 20 to midnight after a performance, as I am writing this...I hope you enjoyed reading this far anyhow ((O;
Cheers and good night!!