http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-josephson/fit-and-funky_b_5571593.html

October 21st

There is a new shop opening in town it is called "October 21st". It will sell clothes. Strange name I thought at first, but then I was intrigued with it.. and after standing back and thinking for a moment I thought it was really good as it captured my imagination and made me think and react... I guess that when it opens it will be on October the 21st? I will see. I think I will have to go in and ask. That is the thing at the moment, I can't stop asking, looking, absorbing and collating! I am spinning... I work in the contexts of my research every week day either: >State Primary School >My Dance School >Special Needs School and although sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Whatever does occur however leads me to something else. I am reading a great deal too on non verbal communication,which is something that has come up through the research, Ideas on creativity, dancing for health and Anna Halprin and her life work. Again sometimes I pick up the texts up and new ideas of the experience leap out at me and lead me to go back into the research setting and see for myself. Or a new idea or question arises. At other times I can feel I am being lead up a path leading to something too big for me to handle within the timeframe or even that isn't intrinsically relevant. To be disciplined on this is a challenge. I know there is a time to stop collecting data and I am feeling it is soon as each theme could be explored on its own, let alone as part of my "dance class". It is as if I want to rebel against my Gant chart! and just keep collecting data! like a sort of consuming...I do think it is because my term started earlier than our term. I am now taking stock and then will explore more or start to structure the critical analysis..Either if it is just to pause and really go over it all or just to triangulate. The thing that I have found this week is that the interview process with the parents is quite emotive. I have also had to stop talking! and listen and make a real emphasis not to influence but to collect data rich in personal comment. Some parents don't really want to talk some you can't stop and have definite ideas...its really insightful. How is everyone else doing?? How is it going?

An Interview in the NY Times- Anna Halprin

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/garden/in-california-a-marriage-of-dance-and-design.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar

Answers or Insight?

Hi Everyone…It’s been great to read the latest blogs and they are flowing at a real pace now…Skype calls are rich in sharing and I sense a real support network forming. 

Rose’s blog was so great it is one I will revisit to remind myself, the essence of questions, and our expectations held in the idea of gaining the answers. To reiterate Rose’s blog; 

 “We don’t have to provide an answer…. learn how to ask better questions in order to gain greater insight and understanding” Payne, R. (2014) 

 These phrases resonate with my ‘present’ and truly I imagine absorbing them. I will make them my daily mantra over the coming weeks so they become my future! 

So I will come at the essence of ‘questions’ with a look at what we were expecting from ‘answers’. Questions can hold such an expectation that the answer would take us out of a place of uncertainty. An uncomfortable, in some instances painful state of limbo, not an ideal place to be? However being in that place of uncertainty doesn’t have to have negative connotations. It is impulse that drives us forward forming new questions and finer insight. 

 A question is my son a boy? Yes. Answered by fact …‘fact’ he is a boy. So a fact can give me the answer in some contexts. However with dance and our experiences of it intrinsically and contextually, it is ever moving, changing, evolving literally in continuum. 

 “The dancer oriented in time/space, somatically alive to her experience of moving.” Fraileigh and Hanstein (1999 p.11) 

 So fixed certainty just don’t seem to crack it! Would we be interested in it if it wasn’t exploratory … We are not looking for facts, more of a better understanding. How can we prove facts when our subject involves a human experience? And that is so diverse. In the act of research it is a continuous circle, 

 “New knowledge is always generative-questions lead to answers and answers always beget more questions” Fraileigh and Hanstein (1999 p.25)

Thanks for the blogs

Bye for now hear you in Skype