Author: Catherine Busk

I partnered with Paula Rivas a colleague at WCA. Here’s her review. Photo’s taken by Carlos Ossa with permission to publish or post by the participants.

What we did:

“The quest for the understanding of movement begins with everyday observations and experiences” (Loman S & Sossin K, pg 1)”

We explored some of our observational skills through movement, to encourage our kinesthetic awareness thinking about how we move?

This was pitched (context) as part 1 of a series of workshops around:

• Why observe movement?
  • How do we observe movement?

We used an every day object, and did some movement activities introducing Laban’s efforts and movement qualities, and the micro teaching was accompanied with a power point. (see attached lesson plan)

Some of the participants reflections after the movement activities were:

“testing my experience with control”

“relaxing” 

“calming”

“pulse points”

“relaxed, flexible movements experiences”

“weighted blanket, pressure pinch”

Peer Feedback.

What Happened:

Right at the start of the teaching, my compuyter froze and I was unable to move the slide or see my peers, so I had to roll with it.

I was able to do the first 3 activities, but ran out of time to complete with 2 more, and I didnt leave enought time for a decent reflection at the end, where I would have like to link the theory woith the practise, or with the experience of the participants.

What would I have done differenty:

Perhaps not used slides and just gone with me teaching without them. I would also have only chosen 1 effort (for example weight), and left time for the particpants reflections so that less would have been more.

Peer Feedback.

Positives:

Your positivity and confidence helped me to feel positive and confident even though this is out of my comfort zone.

Managed tech issues brilliantly because you know the content well and had notes

Mindful Approach

Good use of Voice modulation making it engaging

Use of body and physical interactions were engaging

Room for improvement:

Were the slides even necessary? I’m curious if you would have used these in an in-person space

 Whats the connection between the points?

 Needed more time for reflection and to connect

 It would have been good to have time to share our embodied reflections of the activities.

My reflections on feedback received:

The feedback was really useful , and I am in complete agreement with regards to needing more time to share, and for me to discuss or explain the connection between the points, i.e. the link between the experiential and the theory. I can see that I planned to much for the time slot, and this didn’t leave enough time to share and reflect, which is where the experiential learning comes together.

General reflection:

Less is more.

Do less, go deeper.

This is something I have been questioning a lot lately, within the way my teaching falls at UAL, I often get chunks of 3 hours sessions here and there or a one of lecture workshop. I find this challenging, as I prefer to see students regularly and in shorter sessions, so I can build upon skills and knowledge bit by bit and at a pace that the students lead (in a a way). In a nutshell, micro teaching very much reflects the “one off” lecture teaching, so my main take away comes to: Do less, go deeper, leave time for reflection and linking.

(Author is former Dean of Faculty, Columbia School of the Arts): Writtor and profressor: She lectures on art, artists and their place in society, and feminist theory, to quote wikipedia.)

A thought provoking article or blog, for me at least which perhaps caught me in a bad moment, and admittedly the following reflections are opinion based, and not factual.

While the article defends well the notion that at an economic summit the arts have an important place, I found this piece to lack critical and analytical reflection. It talks about important social reflections but bypasses the very clash of the setting of a such an event, and name drops at every possible occasion.

If we think about representation within that setting (“Corporate membership of the World Economic Forum costs anywhere from $100,000-$1 million per year, and hotel rooms in Davos easily cost $3,000 a night, meaning that time is money while you’re in Davos for WEF.”), it begs to ask, is this forum just a tick the box setting where the arts and the social welfare creative projects come and present, to fulfill the quota of inclusivity, or is there a chance for debate and real representation? It wasn’t clear to me.

• How did the piece influence your consideration of the aims and purposes of your teaching? 

Context: who are we creating art for? Why are we creating art? How can we contextualize and work with devides, in this case, the economic v’s creative arts etc etc?

Be critical and analytical, even if you are being paid to reflect positively on a situation, include your positionality.

Just a thought.

Vol 5 / Issue 1 (2022) pp. 101–104  Karen Harris,  © 2022 Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal

““You don’t leave this room,” she told us, “until you’ve said something”.

So what to do about silent, faceless lurkers? “

In a nut shell the article discusses:

Provocation 1: Might the pressure to actively participate actually be counter-productive?

Provocation 2: Do we need to recalibrate the notion of “active participation”? When it comes to learning, is “active/passive” a false dichotomy?

Provocation 3: What advantages might the online classroom offer for nurturing a profound, transformative silence?

This short article makes me think of many contradictions, difficulties and inner conversations I have with myself when teaching. Here are my thoughts

• Students who have enrolled on a performance course, who do not want to perform and show their work. Acting, and performing, is in and of itself being seen. So how do I approach a student who does not want to be seen, yet the syllabus of the course they have enrolled on, requires them to be seen. There are many ways to be seen, but during the process: the research and development of a piece, the rehearsing, the repetition, the trial and error: I need to see the student “perform”, and my time is limited in the studio with them. Sometimes there literally is no time for “I don’t feel like performing today”.

• Students who are present, and doing, but not active or proactice. They are there but not there. Going through the motions, but I can’t quite sense them. There are ways of being present. Like the muted participant in an online space, these are the students I most struggle with. I can’t sense what they are thinking, where they are at with the content, or what their thoughts about the work are. Thank goodness for the portfolios and the reflective writing, as it allows for these students to share their process in other forms, and not just in the rehearsal space where I am reliant on observing them rehearse, perform of converse with me. But I do fight the old school, conservatoire trained ballet dancer in me, as something about a student’s “muted” physical presence (by which I mean they are in the space but somehow are invisible) bothers me. Is it because, the way I was originally trained still holds a space within my practise? This of course was a training that aligned with, “if you don’t outwardly show you are interested (i.e. mask everything you feel inside with bright eyes and a masked smile), then you won’t get casted or, a choreographer won’t see you?,” or is it something about being active and not passive, in which ever form being active may take?

• Absence: the constant obstruction to process particularly on a course which is collaborative in nearly every unit. It is the art of not attending and the presence it leaves behind, almost like a political act of not showing up. The not knowing if a student will come, and the stunting of group progress. Being absent is a political act in a sense. Its saying something without saying anything at all.

• Collaboration; how can I foster a space of collaboration to include the silent members with the leaders and the hungry for attention students. On a course that requires you to be seen and to represent the under seen, how can I create an environment that nurtures the introvert performer. How, therefore can I foster learning for the absent learner, when the process and the outcome rely heavily on the act of attending.

This is just a little movement reflection (*) about the sensation of balancing life. Working with 5 different contexts/jobs/roles, the single parent, the women, the friend, the daughter, personal practise and now the student. Sometimes it can feel like a delicate act of balancing, of spinning many plates, of juggling many balls. Much like the students we teach.

p.s. the video is sped up, as it would have made for a boring view in real time.

* (me reflecting through movement; no script, no score, no choreography – just responding to sensations, images, thoughts and feelings through movement)

How I wish I had come across this article when first joining UAL. The arts school approach isn’t always a given, particularly as my initial training as a dancer was conservatoire, and my previous experience in HE was somewhere between conservatoire and drama school/uni. “Signature `Pedagogies” were helpful and ‘very UAL’. As I read this, I was also continually asking: how does this relate to performance practices (in contrast to design), and, how does this relate to movement practise?

My Take away thoughts are:

The crit; Critical and evaluative tool: akin to peer & tutor feedback. Interesting notion of “defending’ work. I’m still pondering that.

The studio; loads of thoughts here. “How to avoid cruising through and dispensing wisdom”…. Sooooo on point, but on the flip side, this can happen when you have 20+ students and you have to float around seeing snippets of group work and feeding back in the moment when you see the students 3hours a week. Students create a social learning environment…. What do we mean by social? -A chit chat or a place where social differences can be shared and used creatively within the work… my students rarely create solo work, so this sharing is important. Individual studio space, made me chuckle. This isn’t the context for acting and performance, fighting for 3 metres squared per group is more relevant. How to create a sense of studio when not onsite. VERY IMPORTANT. We need to be able to rehearse in non conventional spaces, this for me is discipline.

Pedagogies of Ambiguity. Love this. Trust the process and all.  Learning to manage working through ambiguity: process of discovery and creation. This is one of the biggest struggles for students, who want to achieve the end piece without having to bare the difficulties of the unknown, which often leads them to use the first proposal given, rather than really going through research and development.

 The brief. Project based learning, emphasis on project. Again, so important within the context of UAL.

 The live Project. Not sure how this is different from the brief in live performance??

Development of work. Encouraging students to document their work, i.e., what happens in the live moment,: how can this process be documented.

 Research. Yep

 Dialogic exchange. Role of language in the learning process. Interesting point. Relate to non verbal language (i.e. the body) also.

Materiality: What if the production is the body itself.  Material used is the body and not outside of it. The body as a living thing, soma etc etc. Embodied learning, and embodied practise. Important to note the difference. …. This is an essay in and of itself. (Embodied learning: for me –  the how, and the why someone moves (as in movement).)

Object based learning. Object is the centre of the learning: play/charact er/dramaturgy etc etc

 Teaching Strategies: arts school language useful: paralleling: practise and teaching. Dovetailing: Teaching and practise merge.

Real life Problematic, Professionalism. Important reflection on attempting to merge the boundaries between real world and academic setting.

Whats missing for me in this article is attention to peer learning and peer feedback or peer evaluations. This is a crucial part of pedagogy for ensemble (collaborative) making. Teaching groups of 20+ who need to negotiate space, time, and devising together.

Hi. I’m Cat. I’m a dancer, teacher, movement director and dance movement psychotherapist. I originally trained as a ballet and contemporary dancer, and latterly migrated towards dance movement therapy, as well as physical theatre, and the physical in theatre. I’m interested in the body, movement and well being from an embodied persepctive.

I teach at Wimbledon College of Arts, where I am a College Admissions Tutor (C.A.T) and Associate Lecturer. I teach subjects related to movement direction, physical theatre and performance related subjects on the BA and MA courses. As Cat the C.A.T, I also teach within in outreach workshops related to WCA.

What do I want to get from the PG Cert? I’d like to update, refresh and refine teaching methods for teaching within the UK, as well as reaffirm some of what I already know and do.