Career Path Survey

I would be very grateful if you could find the time to answer the above short survey from Survey Monkey. Thanks

Design Business & Ethics

AIGA a professional association for designers have a produced a Guide for the above. Please follow the link:

Ethics in Dance

A debate yet to be had - click on this link to this short article and assess how it colours your view / knowledge on Ethics in the Dance Profession

A world without Ethics...

This was the big question I did not ask at the campus session on Monday 21st



How would it impact on us personally?
How would our profession conduct itself?
What would the effect be on our students/clients/audience?
How would our organisation operate?
What would the impact on society be?

We started the session by drafting up personal ethical principles and then looking at professional ethical principles. In comparing the two there was general agreement that considering the professional ethical principles was more difficult. There was an awareness that ethics has something to do with morals and with rules – and we acknowledged that ethics is comparative both over time and culture. We looked at three theoretical approaches to ethical analysis which are explained in Reader 5 as well as by Joanna - and used these to analyse the described scene from Billy Elliot (comes from Ethics Dance resource).

We then went on to establish some ethical issues in three short case studies – which was a prelude to drawing up a professional code of practice for three professional groups – Performers, Teachers & Arts Managers. These have been reported upon by two Js – Joanna (Dance Teachers) and Jo(Performers).

The discussions during the session brought up a range of ethical issues from professional practice:

Healthy eating in the profession see ARTICLE from Ethics Dance
Teaching the person v teaching the body
Inclusivity & Equity

Wrestling with ideas for an inquiry

Someone at the campus session mentioned they were having difficulty coming to a topic for inquiry. The ensuing discussion showed that this was quite normal at this stage in the module. Inquiry questions can take quite a while to arrive at and inspiration can come from engaging and collaborating with others on the module via SIGs, blogs, facebook, wikis etc. Professional networks - teachers, mentors, places of employment can be muses as well. Some questions are quite naturally driven by personal purposes which is the motivation for an inquiry. A trick here is to consider de-personalising your inquiry and refocus on it from that deeply personal imperative to one that would have wider professional resonance / meaning.

Personal	De-personalise
How can I change my career path?	What are the challenges to shifting career from performing to teaching. Are existing skills transferable?
How can I expand my business?	What are effective marketing strategies? What are models of franchising? What are the statutory requirements/obligations on arts managers?
How can I overcome injury and stay in the profession?	How is injury dealt with in the profession? Are dance masters / teachers too pushy? How important is a knowledge of physiology and anatomy?
How can I deal with a physically disabled pupil in my class?	How can dance teachers ensure inclusivity? How can dance teachers ensure equity in learning for all?

The literature can shape your inquiry and reading texts and professional journals can help formulate and hone the inquiry.

Every question you ask has, in all likelihood, been asked (and maybe answered) before. But not by you. And not in your professional context, at this time. In considering your inquiry a good question to ask is who will benefit? Clearly you all want to benefit on the one level by using the inquiry towards your degree as well as learning and finding out things for yourself. But is there a wider audience who can benefit? Can your inquiry add anything to the profession? Could it change your professional practice? Could it change the practice of others in the profession? Could it confirm your existing practice? Can you bring the findings and deductions from your inquiry to a perspective employer and say – look – this is what I found out through engaging with a process of inquiry?

In wrestling with your topic for inquiry you should adhere to the following principles:

Make it personally relevant

This is important to as it’s your own idea and question and therefore you will be motivated to sustain momentum throughout the entire process.

Make it doable

Will you be able to access people / resources in conducting the inquiry? Moving onto the final section of the module should clarify this for you. But you should also be talking as early as possible to employers / professional mentors.

Is it ethically beneficial?

How will the world of your professional practice be a better place as a result of completing the inquiry?

Debateable

Is your inquiry capable of being argued both for and against? Is there are range of opinion / evidence for your to build up an argument from? This could be answered from the existing literature on the topic.

BAPP thus far is leading you towards an inquiry based learning project in the context of your professional practice and this module sees settling on the inquiry topic and establishing what will be the best way to conduct it taking on board an ethical perspective.

Thinking Through Dance: The Philosophy of Dance Performance and Practices

26 February 2011 - Froebel College, Roehampton University, London

This conference explores the philosophical questions raised by and in dance. Relatively under-theorised as it has been in the history of aesthetics, dance presents fertile ground for philosophical enquiry.

The conference will enable dialogue about dance between different philosophical traditions, and will examine a range of themes.

Keynote speakers: Graham McFee and Nöel Carroll (tbc) Supported by the British Society of Aesthetics and the Society for Dance Research.

Emerging questions on the blogs

The diagram above shows the range of questions being posed by you about your professional practice on the blogs. This is not a comprehensive selection of professional questions but the diagram illustrates the range of questions being posed and they all suggest further and deeper questions. What is also noteworthy is that some of the questions are in the same zone and these are identified by the same colours. This is one way of getting a SIG going ..... Some people have already started wikis as I discovered - this is another technological tool to support a SIG which you can use.

PS: Click on the diagram to enlarge it.