1) What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?
The thing that really does keep me going as performer is that applause (if your lucky, a standing ovation haha) at the end of a show. It makes me feel so proud of what I do and makes me feel so happy that I have made someone feel something for however long the show has been on for. You don't know who is watching and what anyone is going through so they can come to theatre and just take their mind of any problems/stress their may be encountering and just enjoy! As performers, our aim is for the audience to feel what we are portraying on stage which could be many things; happiness, sadness, love, hatred, hope ect. and the claps and cheers show their appreciation of our hard work and this keeps me going!
On a teaching level, when you see a child improve on the things you have been teaching and you know that your the one who has helped them is such a great feeling. This could be technically or even emotionally - One of my students started as a very shy, self conscious girl. I look at her now, she has her own friends and she's laughing and really trying things I never thought she would. I know that it's not all down to me but to be apart of it is a wonderful sense of achievement. Both of these elements keep me enthusiastic about my practice.
Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?
I see other students who I either trained with in the past or done a show with who are doing other great things with their own practice and I admire them for all their hard work and it makes it evident that I can do the same thing and make my own goals come true.
Me and my beautiful year on graduation - Admiring all their hard work and their success.
2.) What gets you angry or makes you sad?
There are two main things that really make me mad. One being when audience members are being disrespectful. I have seen it when I have been an audience member myself, people checking their phone and texting during a show! It's so rude! If its an emergency, they should leave quietly and sort it out and come back in but i'm sure the majority of the time it is't - we have worked so hard, more than they will ever understand and we haven't done it for them to come and sit on their phone. For another example, I was dancing in a 1920's show a couple of weeks ago at a 1920's car racing event in the evening. A couple of drunken men decided it would be funny to get on stage with us a try and copy what we were doing - taking all the audiences attention off us and onto them - I was in shock!
The other thing which makes me a little bit annoyed when people are unprofessional in rehearsal, for example; I have a show in Liverpool on Tuesday, our choreographer called a rehearsal on Sunday as that's when we could all make it and one girl text's last minute and says she can't come 'because she forgot about the Sunday train timetable and by the time she got there, there would be no point' letting us all down. We accept it if it's the first time but it's starts to get annoying when it happens a lot.
Who do I admire who shares your feelings or has found away to work around the sadness or anger?
I have a very good friend who I trained with who understands me like no one else does. We share the same emotions and opinions on almost everything so talking to her always makes me feel a lot better about any situation I'm in which has made me feel sad or anger, Don't know where I would be without her!
3.) What do you love about what you do?
I feel like this question relates back to the first one - If your enthusiastic about something, it probably means you love it too! I love that sense of achievement at the end of the show - when everything has gone right and you know you out everything you could into making you performance as best as it can be. However, even if the show didn't go as well as it could of, you should still feel that sense of achievement because of how you handled it; Donald Schon's reflection-in-action comes into play and you have to make the show work and carry on - most of time the audience won't even notice it!
Who do I admire who also seems to love this or in an example of what you love?
When I was in training, my Head of Dance teacher always talked about the passion and love he had as a performer and you could feel it when he told us - even though he didn't perform any longer, the passion still flowed through his veins, and for this, I admired him. He wanted to help you and become the best performer you could be - I saw him like this for 3 years until my graduation and he said to me "even if you walk out of these doors and never dance a single dance move again, as long as your happy and have love then you have succeeded". This took me by surprise, over the last 3 years as my dance teacher it was always about dance, dance, dance - I guess as his teaching role, that's what he has to do. But this was more a friend to friend advice and for this, I admire him more, he really opened my mind to think how right he might actually be.
4.) What do you feel you don't understand?
I don't understand employers who think it is ok to advertise a job which pays minimum wage, or sometimes less, and say 'this job is great for experience' - they are aiming for fresh graduates who will do anything to get where they want to be. This is NOT acceptable! Fresh graduates have trained the same as any other professional! They deserve to be paid for a highly skilled job just as much as anyone else. Employers think they can get away with it and save money by doing so. It's not fair.
Who do I admire who does seem to understand it?
I admire anyone who stands up for this - there are always posts on The Hustle or articles in newspapers about this current situation .
"Graduates could be exploited low pay/no pay doesn't grantee a job after. This just legitimates cheap labour end undermines the industry."
I also found this which made me laugh but puts things into perspective:
Line of enquiry:
I didn't really know what I could write for this put I just did abit of research on what I was talking about for question number 4 and I think I could go further with this idea.
Should we work for no pay/less pay?
If we do, does it undermine the industry?
Who's to blame?
How can we stop this from happening?
How much should we pay?
Employers want people experience so how do you get your first job?
Are employers promising paid work at the end of it?
How does it effect people's emotional state?
