Mittwoch, 30. November 2016

Analysis

For the "Portfolio 1: A Critical Review of your Inquiry" for the analysis part I thought I would do another mind map again, so I have an overview what I want to write about in this section.



I divided it into the three main sections, "Data", "Literature" and "Experience" and then for the beginning I wrote down what came to my mind.

The mind map really helped me to get on with the analysis part in my essay. I love doing mind maps because you can always refer back on it, and for me it is very important to make one because then I can't forget any main details about the subject :)

How important is a mind map to you? Would love to hear some other thoughts and ways :)


Sonntag, 27. November 2016

1. Advent




HAPPY 1. ADVENT from the Family Schützenhofer (selfmade by my mum!) 


Mind Map





I thought I had already shared this mind map on my blog, but obviously I had forgotten about it.

I made this mind map in the summer, to help me to organise my thoughts. Especially for me, a mind map is very helpful and important because it helps to clarify what I want to write and find out about.

Montag, 14. November 2016

Interview process

At the moment I am still in my 'interview process', and up to now I had two different musical theatre performers.
I am so glad that I can say that I am really happy with my inquiry because it is so interesting to hear what they have already experienced and I could listen to them for hours and hours :)
The two interviews I have conducted so far where quite different from each other. Both are already 25 years in the musical theatre industry but everyone experienced something else.

Listening to them made me really think about my future and I realised that:


  • it is a very tough career !
  • I always have to give 100%, even if I sometimes do not feel like doing so!
  • I will always be supported by my family and friends!

I am still waiting for some answers from other interview partners, but I really hope that they will get back to me soon, so I can hear more about their experiences and thoughts! :)

https://www.google.at/search?q=always+keep+going&rlz=1C1ZMDB_enGB504GB507&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4r9nNjanQAhVLGhQKHRQuDogQ_AUICCgB&biw=1366&bih=662#imgrc=gn4xbJ1plKi70M%3A

I found this picture in the web, and I think it sums up my dance career! You can see an endless road, with the words "Keep Going.". Especially for me as a dancer this picture says a lot, because you never know where the road may lead you and you should never give up!

So E V E R Y O N E "Please never give up and always keep going because you never know what can happen next!"




Mittwoch, 2. November 2016

Finally back!

Hello :)

After 7 amazing weeks in Greece (Rhodes and Kos) doing my first dance job I am back in Austria. I got back two weeks ago but because I still have so many things to organize and some jobs are going on, I said to myself: Right Linda...you need to sit down, and do something for uni, because it's your last module and you need to keep going! Also because I am going to Norway on saturday I thought: Now it's the time to find some literature for your inquiry!

Last tuesday Cassie and me had a really good skype session with Paula.

Paula has a really good slide show on her blog and her second page is:

Points to get out of the session:


  • thinking creatively
  • progress on your practitioner research and analysis task
  • an idea about how to draft the critical review
  • ideas about how to communicate the inquiry and continuing to network
This was the first thing I have written down in my notebook, because I think they are very useful bullet points and covered all of them during our skype session.

Paula asked us where we are with our inquiry and I said that I started doing my interviews with the professional musical performers, which I am really interested about because at the moment I have interviewed two performers and I said to Paula that I could listen to their stories a whole day. For me it is so interesting to hear what they have already experienced in their lives.
Paula also mentioned the term 'coding', which means to take notes from the oral interview. And a quote is to take it word by word.

The first two big words were: Creativity and Analysis !

Paula mentioned a psychologist called Mihaly Csikszenrmihalyi. I just found a really interesting speech from him, where he is talking about his life and about the flow and creativity within artists! He points out a very nice poetry ("flow in poetry"), which says:
"It's like opening a door that's floating in the middle of nowhere and all you have to do is go and turn the handle and open it and let yourself sink into it. You can't particularly force yourself through it. You just have to float. If there's any gravitational pull, it's from the outside world trying to keep you back from the door."

And another one, where I can really associate with it, because it's the same when I dance:
"It was just one of those programs that clicked. I mean everything went right, everything felt good... it's just such a rush, like you feel it could go on and on and on, like you don't want it to stop because it's going so well. It's almost as though you don't have to think, it's like everything goes automatically without thinking... it's like you're on automatic pilot, so you don't have any thoughts. You hear the music but you're not aware that you're hearing it, because it's a part of it all."

If you are interested, have a listen:
https://www.ted.com/talks/mihaly_csikszentmihalyi_on_flow?language=de#t-487121



                                                           Data



                          Literature                                     Experience

https://www.google.at/search?q=analysis+triangle&rlz=1C1ZMDB_enGB504GB507&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjdmZnC9InQAhXBPBQKHSEiDDAQ_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=triangle&imgrc=9ZQLpqIKs4HuuM%3A

All three of them are very important to create a good analysis review.

Data: people you talk to - in my case it's the interviews
Literature: articles or books you find - Paula said that we should find 10-20 sources - find some autor sourced articles - and that's literature expertise from other's and from a collected body of knowledge in your field and beyond
Experience: your own experience or in my case I can also use cultural experience, for example I can also use brochures to talk about the place and theatre


All in all I found the skype session very interesting and helpful.
And now I need to find some more literature ;)



Freitag, 29. April 2016

Topic change!

Hii :)

Last week I had a slight panic attack and an emergency...
As I got the 'literature' bullet point with my old theme, I got stuck and didn't know how to continue, so I asked a friend... she made everything clearer to me, but I also thought "oh no, i think i understood it the wrong way!"
So I emailed my tutor Paula for an emergency skype session, and she had time for me, which was very kind of her. We discussed a few things and she explained it very well and it was so helpful. She also said that my old inquiry is way too big and extensive, so I was like "oh no! I have to change my topic!" I was slighty stressing...
...but after the really helpful skype session, I then knew my new inquiry, and I was really happy with it. We cut it down to "Theatres and performances in Linz (Austria); and performers in Linz and Vienna", so now it was only about Austria, which was way easier for me.

I am excited to start interviewing some performers in Austria and I am sure I will find out some very interesting things about them.



Freitag, 1. April 2016

Viennese Waltz

Hi everyone :)

This week I was talking to my best friend Cassie, who is also doing this course,  about how we are getting on with Module 2. I said that I struggle a bit because for some topics about Austria it is quite difficult to find something on the internet. Then Cassie said to me: "You know, when I think of Austria in a performing way, 'Opera' and the 'Viennese Waltz' comes straight into my head." I was like, "oh yeah, I didn't even think of that!" So I started researching...

...personally for me the most traditional and classical waltz music is "The Blue Danube Waltz" by Johann Strauss II.


...a little bit of history...

The Viennese Waltz is the oldest of the current ballroom dances. It emerged in the second half of the 18th century from the German dance and the 'Ländler' (a folk dance) in Austria and was both popular and subject to criticism.
The dance reached and spread to England sometime before 1812; it was introduced as the German Waltz and the folk really liked that new dance style.

The Waltz is performed in a three fourth beat.
The Viennese loved the dance when it was introduced in Vienna in the late 18th/19th century. The most prominent event that introduced this new dance was the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15.

The posture and how the arms are held is very strict and an important issue in the Viennese Waltz (as you can see from the picture below, who are professional ballroom dancers).



The waltz was significantly different from its form today. In the first place, the couples didn't dance in the closed position as today (as you can see from the two pictures - the one above is nowadays in a professional way; and the one underneath is in the earlier years)



There was another difference from our present technique. The feet were turned out and the rise of foot during the dance was much more pronounced than it is today.


At the beginning of the 1930s the Viennese Waltz had its comeback as a folk dance in Austria and Germany. The former military officer Karl von Mirkowitsch made it acceptable both for society and ballroom, and since 1932 the Viennese Waltz has been present on ballroom dance floors and it will never be missed out on a ball in Austria and Germany.



Bibliography:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viennese_Waltz
https://www.google.at/search?q=viennese+waltz&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&site=webhp&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi8rbejhu3LAhWEnRoKHebVC10Q_AUIBigB#tbm=isch&q=viennese+waltz+earlier+times&imgrc=wETNpI7UPAm-PM%3A
http://www.vienna-unwrapped.com/vienna-waltz/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_CTYymbbEL4
https://www.google.at/search?q=viennese+waltz+haltung&rlz=1C1ZMDB_enGB504GB507&espv=2&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiC8dCzje3LAhVGVBQKHcCrAlAQ_AUIBigB#imgrc=bwiTI6V4C9hTiM%3A


Dienstag, 22. März 2016

Dress Code!

My very first thought about theatres in Austria and England was the "dress code"! They are very different to each other...

Here are some examples:


This is my friend and me before we were watching a musical in Austria.



This is Cassie and me in a theatre in England. You can't really see what I was wearing but I basically wore a long sleeved shirt, jeans and a scarf.



I think you can all see the differences now..

The first time when my mum and I went to a theatre in London we were a bit shocked!! Because people were walking into the auditorium with some shopping bags, food/snacks, wine (!!) and most of the people wore trainers and daily clothes. We both looked at each other and were like "what the hell are they wearing?!" We couldn't really believe what we saw...
...I think you can compare it a bit with our "we are going to the cinema" - outfit.

The last time I was in London I went to the theatre with a friend, who lives in London and my question to her was: "You know, what still really confuses me?...why are they all going to the theatre with normal/daily clothes on?" And my friend had actually a really good point. At first she also had to get used to it, because she is from Scotland and in her hometown they usually also wear dresses or nice clothes to the theatre. She explained to me that in England, or especially in London it is such an everyday thing you can do, because they have so many theatres and nowadays it is really easy to get some cheap tickets. Like we did on that night...on the same morning we just looked online and were searching for some good, but cheap tickets...and only after about five minutes we found some!

On the other hand in Austria it is not as easy as that, I mean I'm sure you can get tickets on the same day but I am pretty sure that they would be very expensive. Normally when my family and I are going to the theatre we book our tickets at least a month before.


I think it will always be a bit weird for me when I see the other people with some shopping bags or snacks in a theatre in England, because for me it's normal when I go to a theatre in Austria, it means I have to put on some nice clothes, pretty jewellery, lovely shoes and some make up :) 


Mittwoch, 2. März 2016

Skype session

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I had a one to one skype session with Paula. The reason I wanted to skype with my tutor was, because I got stuck in finding an interesting inquiry theme. I  read a few blogs from different students, who already found their perfect topics.... when I read them I got a bit stressed out because I haven't found mine yet. However, I am so glad I had the skype session because now I've got a starting point.

The first question Paula asked me was "What am I interested in?".


My answer to that was "I would love to write something about D A N C E, and I would like to look further into it."
But dance is such a huge topic...so Paula and me started brainstorming. My problem also is that I don't have a dance job at the moment, which I could take as my inquiry. Paula asked me if she can be a bit nosy and she wanted to know what my jobs are at the moment. I told her that I have got one promotion job and a bar job. My tutor then was thinking that I maybe could look further into my promotion job but I honestly had to say that I am not very interested in that and it wouldn't be fun to write about...

....I then had an idea!!

Because I'm not english and I live in Austria at the moment, I thought I could write something about the difference from Austria and England. We then kept on brainstorming...

- Austrian theatres .... how are they different to english ones? (art form)
- literature ... how is it different to England?
- performance ... how is the performance different in those two countries?
- how do the teacher teach differently?
- find some practitioners...
- compare the two countries..
- do they have any similarities?
- what genre do I want to look at?


Personally I think this is a really good starting point.. and I am very glad that I had the skype session with Paula.
It is very interesting for me to research about those questions, especially for me, because I have already trained in Austria and in England, so I am sure I have got some good comparisons. :)





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