A Pause for thought....

A Pause for thought ...about aesthetics

I was reading today about the work of the founder of Urban Bush Women – Jawole Willa Jo Zolla and her processes  for  how she creates  work and the many influences that led her to evolve her aesthetic and how it informs her work.  It was a self study which charted her background, training, cultural influences that eventually evolved a process of self reflection collaborations with the aim of making dance theatre that is impactful and be a catalyst for social change.  It was interesting reading because in the back of my mind I was asking where on the spectrum or continuum was there a positivist or non-positivist stance – there was a fluidity that moved from one to the other.  There were so many influences which involved, live music and the jazz improvisational aesthetic in modern dance, personal histories and narrative, theatre.   She studied with Kei Takei and begun to understand the necessity for training people to move naturally.  She said that some people were natural dancers but that many good dancers had to be trained to find natural movement impulses  – a kind of embodiment of experiences of natural the impulses and knowledge of the body to express and perform.  I was intrigued by her interest of Folk Art as a visual medium that informed her process and how life experiences were expressed through that medium mostly by African American folk from an older generation who begin to use this visual medium the majority of cases for the first time when they are 60 years and over even though experiences in this visual medium meant that they were not formally trained. For Jawole, the training was in the histories and stories of their lives which were rich, dense and impactful and came through powerfully in their work.   Their experiences embodied the work and she drew on those experiences.  When working with dancers, Jawole  worked with older dancers over 30 years old which in her opinion was  a prime time for performing and with the theory of embodied experiences brought interesting nuances to their performances.

Two thoughts come to mind as I reflect on Jawole Willa and the evolution of her processes: the recognition of the body as a site for knowledge in other words the corporal body which acts as site of embodied knowledge.  I came across a paper about information modalities which acknowledges the use of corporeality as a form of information literacy with equal weight to a cognitive perspective whereby the mind was the key recipient of information and found an interesting parallel to dance and movement and the process of learning through the body by the use of corporeality as outlined by Dr Annemaree Lloyd (2010)

In respect to information literacy practice, corporeality is the source of embodied and situated knowledges, which cannot be expressly articulated through the written word, but is grounded in the physical actions and nuances of members who participate in the practices of a particular social site.

Bodies make information and the meaning that we make of information visible, and therefore make a 'shared understanding of the world possible' (Rambusch and Ziemke 2005: 1807). The materiality of practice is inscribed on our bodies, revealing our association with place, our identity, and our practical understandings. In turn bodies are accessed and read as information sources by co-participants who actively interrogate the bodies of others in practice in order gain access to embodied knowledge. Through our bodies we are able to demonstrate our practical knowledge and nuanced understanding which enable the communities to which we connect, to recognize our alignment and commitment.

Lloyd, A. (2010). "Corporeality and practice theory: exploring emerging research agendas for information literacy" Information Research, 15(3) colis794. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/15-3/colis7/colis704.html]

I had an aha moment when I thought about  her process of folk art and how it was used to draw out movement material through the canvas of life as expressed by elderly African American folk and how they allowed their bodies through training and experiences in life to offer  access to memory and knowledge.  It also points me into the direction of Merleau-Ponty who talked about sensing and perception and the emphasis of the body as a primary site of knowing the world.  I was also interested in Jawole’s use of older dancers to perform her work who I assume would have  had a bank of life experiences that would contribute to her work.  It got me thinking about young people and their experiences when learning and performing – even though young some young people I have come into contact with may have had an intense bank of experiences in their embodied lives to draw on albeit in a shorter time frame which would be just as valid as that of an older dancer.  I don’t doubt the journey that they are on but I would look at the quality of experience and how it enriches their lives which can be just as powerful and if I am a good teacher/ mentor could offer to bring that out if they would allow me to.  Would the work of Urban Bush Women therefore be alien to the experiences and understanding of young people? Would they not understand because being young they would not have a connection to her work?  - just a thought.  Mind you as I reflect this article about Jawole Willa was written some time ago and it would be good to see how much has changed and evolved. This also goes into the ethical aesthetic and contacts Jawole makes with her dancers with embodied experiences and also that of the audience who would view her work. A lot of the work is a collective embodied experience and therefore from a contractual stance.  I wonder whether Jawola Willa  like in Adesola’s PhD extract about Twyla Tharp entered a contract of code of aesthetic ethics with her audience as spectator and her role  as artist and practical researcher when presenting her work.   As a collaborative process a lot of the decision making process in Urban Bush Women is determined by the people it will affect. 

Fluctuations and Ethics

I had an eventful week a couple of weeks ago which threw up   issues to reflect and ask 1) what am I going to investigate in this module 2 inquiry 2) looking at ethical dilemmas resulting from my very eventful and thought provoking week and lastly 3) the variability of my work pattern and how it might affect my ultimate research project if permission is granted.

I’ve been fluctuating between the lines of inquiry I am interested in pursuing and trying to find meaning.    Its interesting how with the ideas I perceive  in my mind are clear until I test them and realise how much I need to return back to the drawing board and start again.  What challenges my ideas has been influenced by outside considerations that I had not anticipated and also when reading a range and variety of texts and I have come into contact with. I suppose that is what this journey is all about to test ideas and not fix them as yet.  I suppose I am illustrating a non-positivist stance in that my reality is not entirely fixed at this point but I do have a broad outline of what it is I would like to investigate.  Perhaps also I am hung up on the level of detail needed.

I am still interested in investigating a codified system of dance (Horton) seen through the lens of an embodied experience – and this has been constant for me in what it is I wish to create – that is fixed in a way but how it ends up will be determined by the type of framework I create.   However I have been faced with whether through creating this inquiry would it be relevant to what it is I want to find out ( do I know the answer already?) where do I intend to go with it? and who will this investigation ultimately serve or benefit?  As I reflect on this Alan’s blog from last week about remembering versus experience made me reflect back to my past training experiences in New York at the Ailey school to ask myself whether my experiences were constructed experiences when training in the formative time of my career and was it fit for purpose. What do I remember going through the rigorous training and how it resonated with my body, my identity physically, mentally, culturally – my sense of self.  Did I only remember the good parts and blot out the negative experiences?   Do I remember anything I constructed in those experiences? Well in my mind yes but fuzzy – however my body remembers the training which became part of my DNA.  I say that because after having my last child many   years after leaving Ailey and my body was not quite back to peak  dancer mode I took a Horton class and was petrified that I would not remember a thing or whether I would cope: the warm up series and fortifications.  I need not have worried.  My body knowledge took over and it was as though I hadn’t left the Ailey school at all. The experiences came flooding back – as if my body said ‘where... have you been for so long!?’ So an embodiment was present and occurred but my inquiry would be to look at the root of that and go through a process of physical analysis of remembering how I remembered.  The codification of the exercises and movement studies of Horton are very structured and anatomical but within that there was a freedom and in body memory terms of allowing and trusting my body’s memory to learn and absorb and understand.   With this body memory I want to get back to the source of it and by doing so make it adaptable and palatable for young people to learn and benefit from the beauty of the form. As it stands I do not teach it in its purest form simply because some of my students who do not have a large movement vocabulary would find it a huge challenge, so I have to adapt it to their preferred learning style and from there when there is sufficient body knowledge – offer more challenging studies. By constructing these experiences I in essence am creating them.  Although I still can’t remember who coined the phrase “you are who/what you think about....” I still draw comfort from it when I hear and express it.   So in essence I am constructing my reality and experiences based on my own belief system – which is okay.  The legacy of that belief has resulted in a vocabulary of dance ideas, experiences and remembering.

So, in finding what my sense of self is and quest for defining this inquiry I am paused by the assumption that what is right for me might not be right for my research subjects – in this case the young people I teach.  This leads to an ethical issue of whether what I am excited about and want to do in research terms would be fit for purpose and relevant to/for them.  Do they care after all and if so how do I frame any lines of inquiry, questions, dialogues, pilots or observational studies that would ensure their buy-in to take part in my research. How do I create research tools when faced with some young people with a host of issues which might challenge the integrity of the research?  The simple answer is find another group but for me it is not so easy due the freelance nature of my work which sometimes result in a longer term relationship during an academic year ( may be asked back next academic year or not) or in a lot of cases covering other teachers classes.  This scenario might affect the research methods I use and not give enough depth to the inquiry possibly. I am facing a dilemma of how to phrase the types of questions or what my research tools will be to frame this inquiry especially when I have to factor in and peel off layers of social and environmental concerns.  Perhaps this is the beauty of the challenge to investigate and see what happens and during the process make the inquiry bespoke to them as subjects and hope that they are in a state of readiness to subscribe to and take part in the inquiry.  A friend recently advised in response to my dilemma that they(young people) are on a journey of which they must travel and go through a range of situations  and emotions some of them more life changing than others and that my entry into their lives as their teacher at the crossroads with my inquiry is part of their journey and mine of developing experiences, learning and memory.   A code of ethics spring to mind by creating a structure or set of guidelines that will protect me as the researcher and my responses to the range of challenges that the project might throw up as well as the ethical considerations of the young people involved.  

 Another consideration around the ethics issue and codes of conduct has come to mind.  As a freelancer my work is dependant on funding which at times is erratic, sometimes last minute , and also dependant on the school’s scheduling.  Plus I am not always in the same school or organisational setting for long periods of time as it might be a one-off covering role.   It places me in a slightly vulnerable position as far as drawing up a personal code of practice for my  nquiry and who do I present it to.  Do I present it to all of the schools I come into contact with? Or my main employer which in this case is the RAD as a freelance tutor.  My only worry is that as my employer they may have the right to change the focus of my inquiry if they have some issue with it – I have to check it out.  I do take comfort  in what  Judith Bell (2010) in “Doing Your Research Project” (5^th edition) advises  that as long as I have done as much as I can do to satisfy myself that my inquiry is done and conducted in  a way that complies with my own ethical principles,  a bespoke approach can be adopted.  She describes a postgraduate student who worked as a teacher in a school and did a piece of in-house research in the school where he taught.  His approach was a bespoke personal code of practice which made clear the conditions and practices to ensure his own and the school’s integrity of the research.   I am sure that it was not without its problems but as a framework it is something worth exploring and food for thought.  I think I’ll bake a cake now!

I need a little time to think it over...!

I wanted to respond to Helen’s blog and post but for some reason (probably my techno phobic fear of technology) I couldn’t respond to the posting – everytime I hit ‘publish’ or 'reply' a message popped up refusing to let me publish – I must be doing something wrong -  so instead I am via my page replying and making it public.

Thanks for the posting Helen about time and opportunity to share.  It is timely and very interesting because for the last few weeks I have been consumed by, and pre-occupied, with time and my perceived lack of it and by my own admission have been a spectator recently due to my understanding of how to manage my time-   the challenges and issues and pressures that it throws up (life, teaching, etc) and how I have managed to deal with it. I have been feeling a little paralyzed by time and I agree that I am responsible for how I manage and shape my experiences in time - now from that spectator stance I am entering a phase where I wish to move through this paralysis and by reflecting and in the context of this current module (2) how I react to the world as I see and experience it.  As I read your blog and comments it  threw up the notion of whether  time for me is too linear or not and that it is simply there and any measure to denote  time is when we see  change be it physically ( as we grow and evolve) , cognitively, emotionally, cyclical. I’ve tended to rush and panic that I have a small window of opportunity to affect change or not enough time, be it the simplest of things  or find myself trying to catch up with other notions of time (e.g. rushing to get the bus, listening to regular news bulletins on the radio,  making sure that the children have done their homework, or making sure that the students in my class understand or learn a routine or exercise on time before we can all collectively move on to the next dance routine in a small window of time. I've been reflecting on this for a little while and as soon as I get to a point where I wish to affect some kind of change in time, something happens which challenges my concept and ability to engage and get stuck in time.  Also I have by reading all of the lively discussions both on the blogs and LinkedIn postings I have been trying to find a time entry to enter the debate.  What has been stopping me is a paralysis of time because I feel that I will have needed to have reflected on it for some time so that I can articulate a sensible response from an embodiment perspective.   In terms of where I stand in all of this I feel that in earlier years I have had influences which have been formative and shaping of my learning journey but now am entering a phase where whereby I have the responsibility to change and affect change and the time is mine to make it happen without waiting for the permissions or approvals of others.