It was great to catch up with Chloe - particularly after reading one of her blogs and seeing that the concept of 'teamwork' had cropped up. Teamwork has become a main theme throughout my inquiry so I was eager to discuss this.
Initially however, we chatted generally about how we were getting on. We both agreed we had a lot of information, ideas and discoveries - it was just how we go about "getting it down on paper." We also acknowledged the importance of "putting it down in the order so that it makes the most sense." This is our inquiry and our topic of interest, so no matter how it's written, the information makes sense to us and has relevance. We must think of our audiences who have no prior knowledge toward the inquiry. Ideas, literature, research and conclusions need to be presented in an orderly form so that it's understandable to the readers and follows the journey perhaps. I take this opportunity to acknowledge that this is an area of weakness for me. I'm much better at explaining verbally or physically. As performers and creatives, we are doers - written words are generally much more alien.
We discussed artefacts and how looking at previous students' has been extremely helpful. After watching past BAPP artefacts, I've found that my chosen genre of 'film', no matter what the visual content, is much more engaging when the words/audio relate to the images. Too many words with footage or photography that's irrelevant looses interest.
We also spoke about the critical review and how looking to the readers and handbooks proved beneficial whilst drafting!
Moving on to teamwork, Chloe told me about a piece of literature she had been studying by Lyn Cramer - who had interviewed several directors and choreographers from Broadway. Chloe said how she'd found varying perspectives from reading this in comparison with her research data in regards to participant vs leaders. "Participants are required to be much more versatile in the way they work with others, where as for leaders it seems more personal." I found this really interesting. It made me think that a general level of team work and interpersonal skills are required by all, and can be applied across companies, disciplines and even professions; but as a performer you then also have to adapt to your environment and comply with the authoritative figures' ways of working.
She also mentioned 'familiarity' which has also cropped up in my inquiry topic after reading "Teamwork in the Performing Arts" by W & R Rouse (2004). Chloe discussed one director, Rob Ashford, who likes to work with 50% of people he already knows and 50% of those he doesn't. He said that working with the entirely same company restricts his creativity. I believe working with new people automatically exercises your creativity because everybody's facilities and expressions of movement are different, and a good director/choreographer will work with what they've got and maximise everybody's individuality. In "Working Together in Theatre: Collaboration & Leadership," Cohen discusses hierarchy and how it should "maximise their members unique abilities" in regards to specialisation. I, for example, often execute the bigger and more difficult lifts because I am one of the smallest and have good flexibility. In reference to "Local, open-aired performances in Norway as interdisciplinary Theatre," (Nygaard 2001) it is stated that "the structure of local performance is adapted to the local disciplines." This implies that the director of such performances works with the people and skills he has which would obviously affect his own work and creativity.
We naturally mentioned relationships as an element of teamwork and how positive social relationships out of the work place benefit the working relationships on stage in regards to the chemistry and creativity between performers.
The imperative that is financial budget had become an essential factor in Chloe's inquiry, something that I had also found in connection with leadership. Scheduling and time restrictions have been more integral on my part though. If the above are lacking then we enter an even higher pressured environment where teamwork is even more essential to achieve the goal and enhance creativity.
We established during the phone call that teamwork and the forming of relationships are skills essential to and transferable across any profession, but seem more apparent in the theatre. It is an interesting context to study the skills in because of the intense environment and close proximity that we work in - for e.g. partnering people, making contact with people, and doing quick changes back stage where other people are.
Overall it was great chatting with Chloe and I'll definitely be keeping an eye out for any more blog posts of here!
Skype with Paula
It was really useful to send my artefact in its current state to Paula and get some feedback on it - particularly as I only have 2 weeks left in my current practice and am using it as a case study.
Feedback:
- Context to practice has been made explicit, now need context to the inquiry
- Be more explanatory with the findings
- Lengthen the opening title
- Reduce trailer size
- Represent themes discussed in tutorial
I am thoroughly enjoying making the artefact and experimenting with technology for this!
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