DECO ILT Presentation

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Introduction

The presentation will discuss the ILT funded DECO project, which seeks to develop an Open Educational Resource to support the development of choreographic practice. The presentation introduces the research project, the practice-based research methodology and outlines the intentions and outcomes of the different stages of the practical research. In doing so, it begins to articulate the form and content of the OER the project is developing.

It can be engaged with in a number of ways; chronologically, through the archive function and through the following tags:

introduction

projectinformation

methodology

practice

reflection

conceptualframeworks

tagging

outputs

OER

fallandswell

epitaxy1

atropos

ongoingresearch

conclusion

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Project Rationale

The impetus for the project is that existing resources to support the delivery of choreography, both in print and online, focus on either the specific processes of an artist, or generic processes and methodologies. Online archiving is an increasing trend in dance, including Synchronous Objects, the Siobhan Davies Replay archive, and the on-going MotionBank project. Although useful in the teaching and study of dance and choreographic practice, they are focused on documenting an individual’s practice rather than developing an individual practice. Similarly, the majority of texts on choreography teach generic processes and methodologies (such as Blom and Chaplin, 1995, Smith-Autard, 2010) or give guides to established practitioners (such as Spier, 2011 or Burrows, 2010) which tend to be idiosyncratic. As such, this presents teaching and learning challenges, as students are encouraged to regurgitate the practices of others rather than identify a practice for themselves through these learning resources. The DECO project addresses these challenges by producing an OER using tumblr to support the development of an individual practice. This may include tasks to explore choreographic practices and approaches, strategies for reflection and examples in practice, to facilitate students in understanding and developing their own practice.

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Why tumblr?

Tumblr is an appropriate platform for an OER on choreographic practice because of the facility to include multimedia resources, and also because of how tagging can enable non-liner navigation, as creative processes are in and of themselves non-linear. (Tharp, 2006) ‘Tagging’ content (for instance as tasks, reflection strategies) will allow the user to arrange and re-arrange the OER materials according to their immediate learning goals.

The exploration of tumblr as a platform to house an OER is an extension of my existing pedagogical research exploring social media applications as alternative educational interfaces to traditional Virtual Learning Environments. This research, briefly, questions the efficacy of in house Virtual Learning Environments in the tradition of Weller (2006: 99) and considers, practically and pedagogically, the adoption of social media applications to facilitate meaningful blended learning experiences.

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Aims and Objectives

The initial aims and objectives of the project were to:

Create an OER that can be used to support the development of choreographic practice

Involve students in pedagogical research, and the development of OERs/blended provision

Explore the use of tumblr as a platform to develop and house OERs Investigate how ‘tagging’ can be used to catalogue, arrange and rearrange materials to create an interactive, non-linear OER

Promote dance research at the University of Northampton through the organisation of a conference 

Contribute to my CPD by continuing my research in to educational uses of social media, and exploring, documenting and reflecting on my choreographic practice

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Outputs and Deliverables

Project outputs will include:

The OER

Organisation of and paper presentation at one day conference ‘Instigating, Creating and Responding: Revisiting the roles of the dancer and choreographer in the choreographic process’ on 3rd July 2015 at the University of Northampton co-organised with Senior Lecturer Matthew Gough

Public performances (including Open Studio at Isham Studios on 12th December 2014, NN Gallery on 31st January 2015 and Newgrounds at The Core, Corby 19th-20th June 2015)

A film documenting, reflecting on and evaluating the research process, filmed and edited by BA Dance graduate Mary O’Brien

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Methodology

The project takes a practice-as-research methodology, where knowledge is produced through the dynamic interaction of practitioner knowledge, critical reflection and conceptual frameworks (Nelson, 2009: 127). In the DECO project, the materials for the OER are being developed in response to research in to or rather through my own developing choreographic practice.

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Practitioner Knowledge

The intention of practice-as-research is to unlock the tacit knowledge practitioners use to make work (Nelson, 2009: 125), or in the case of the DECO project, the tacit knowledge I, as a practitioner, am using to develop and sustain my choreographic practice. As such the making of choreographic work for public performance is crucial to the research strategy. In the DECO project, this has involved making dance work as part of my teaching and extracurricular choreographic laboratories.

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Critical Reflection

A practice-as-research methodology acknowledges the tacit and embodied knowledge inherent in practice, and the role of critical reflection or ‘practitioner ‘action research’...to reflect upon established practice as well as to bring out ‘tacit knowledge’.’ (Nelson, 2006: 113) Therefore, reflection strategies have been a fundamental part of the research design, and have taken many forms.

In addition to my project blog http://decoprojectblog.tumblr.com I have kept an ongoing blog reflecting on my practice http://developingchoreographicpractice.tumblr.com and a separate blog for each of the dance works I have made throughout the course of the project. These are:

Fall and Swell (2014) http://foundationsinchor1415.tumblr.com Epitaxy 1 (2015) http://decochoreographiclab.tumblr.com Atropos (2015) http://atropos2015.tumblr.com

Each of these blogs has explored different approaches to critical reflection, to not only ‘unpick’ the tacit knowledge embodied in my practice, but also to explore a range of reflection strategies to be included on the OER. Using tumblr for these blogs has also allowed me to explore and experiment with tagging as a navigational tool.

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External Reflection/Evaluation

Critical reflection in this project has also involved external perspectives, in a similar vein to the traditional of audience research in practice-as-research (Nelson, 2006: 114). These include:

Strategies to engage the students in my choreography classes, dancers in choreographic works and participants in choreographic laboratories critically with my work, my practice and the project including interviews, questionnaires and focus groups. 

My student research assistant, Hollie Rogers, documenting and critically reflecting on the making of Atropos.

Mentoring from Senior Lecturer in Dance Matthew Gough has provided an external eye observing my studio practice to give feedback and facilitate reflection and evaluation (Tembroti and Tsangaridou, 2013: 9).

The film produced by Mary O’Brien - although a form of documentation and critical evaluation of the project, the filming process involves critical discussions and questioning that form part of my reflection on my choreographic practice, and the project as a whole.

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Critical Reflection

‘Reflective practitioners think about their experiences in practice and view them as opportunities to learn. They examine their definitions of knowledge, seek to develop broad and multifaceted types of knowledge, and recognise that their knowledge is never complete. Reflective practitioners are concerned about the contexts of their practices and the implications of action. They reflect on themselves, including their assumptions and their theories of action of practice, and take action grounded in self-awareness. Finally, reflective practitioners recognise and seek to act from a place of praxis, a balanced coming together of action and reflection.’ (Kinsella, 2001: 197)

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Conceptual Frameworks

This part of the practice-as-research framework includes how traditional theoretical knowledge informs creative practice, the theorisation of practice-based knowledge from ‘know-how’ in to ‘know-that’ and the formation of ‘cognitive-academic knowledge’ - through traditional forms of knowledge dissemination such as critical writing and conference presentations (Nelson, 2006: 114). In the DECO project, this has included:

Ongoing scholarly reading on choreography, reflective practice, OERs, blended learning and pedagogy

The translation of tacit insights (know-how) into know-that through documentation and critical reflection

Attendance and presentations at conferences

These research methods in tandem have/are producing knowledge about choreographic process and the development of a practice that will form the basis of the OER.

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Extracts from A Choreographer's Handbook

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by Steven Spiers

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by Jacqueline Smith-Autard