“This documentary is an eye-opener to the ballet industry and the lack of support for diversity. Ballet is a very competitive art for everyone, but no matter your skin colour or sexuality, everyone should stand an equal chance.”

https://www.nowness.com/story/pointe-black-marie-astrid-mence-rebecca-murray

Interviews and Data Collection

I managed to conduct my final interview last week and I am now in the process of gathering all my data and looking at the different themes that have emerged. I found the interview process very insightful and informative. I have come across so many different ideas and opinions on my inquiry. Putting this together with my data collection from articles etc is very interesting.

Now on to getting my first draft in for tomorrow!

The Show Must Go On

https://fb.watch/1wQliwgpco/

Girl - an interesting watch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKrI0xJXIR4

Thoughts for the Day

In the syllabus' I have trained in and now teach, we have set exercises for boy's and set exercises for girl's. In today's society does this reach the needs of our current population? In an article I recently posted, it was discussed that some professional Ballet dancers may not stick to their assigned gender class. Female Ballet dancers join the Male classes and the Male dancers will join the Female classes. The dancers feel there abilities are pushed further and they have a lot more potential than they originally thought however, when going back to the performance, they dance their female or male roles.

Looking into the history of dance and why male and females were trained differently, it shows there is a reason for this. It could be due to physic and physical development, emotional development and emotional maturity. But in today's society, people don't just identify with male or female so how can and should dance meet modern day society?

The syllabus' I currently teach haven't been changed in many years so does this need to be reviewed to meet the needs of the current generation? Even the uniform the students wear is designed for either male or female dancers. When I took my teacher training, my ballet teacher explained to me how I should dance differently when teaching a girl and how I should dance differently when teaching a boy. I should dance more fluid and with softer arms when teaching girls but be more strong, broad with the shoulders and precise with movements when teaching boys. During my training I trusted my teacher that this was and is the correct way but looking further into my inquiry I am seeing that this may not be the case.

Interviews

Before we had October Half Term I thought it be a good idea to have my Skype tutorial ahead of interviews. There were quite a few points that had risen and will certainly be thinking about this before my interviews this week. In the north we have half term this week and as most of the people I will be interviewing teach, I thought it be a good idea to have them all this week.

With the current situation of Covid-19, arranging interviews has proven to be fairly difficult. The country is split up in to Tiers and now my town being in Tier 3 and myself having to isolate for 2 weeks I have decided to conduct all interviews over Skype. It isn't ideal but we are lucky that we have the resources to still be able to carry out the research.

Some things for me to think about prior to interviews:

* People may feel nervous about interviewing and not necessarily get their point across so look for clues and hints, let them feel relaxed and take time.

*Something may feel off topic but let the interviewee talk and when looking back, it may relate more than you realised.

 * Be careful of own assumptions. The norm may be different to others.

* Don't ask questions to gain an answer you expect or want.

* Don't ask questions that may fuel a gender divide debate or narrowing down to two genders.

Male and Female Roles in the Dance Industry

Today I have been looking through different articles on Male and Female roles in the industry. An article that I particularly took interest to was....

https://medium.com/gbc-college-english-lemonade/the-problem-with-gender-in-dance-122d4d68fb75