Roanne Cox BAPP ACI Blog

  After a lot of deliberation in the past few days, I have come to a decision on the artefact I want to create. Given the themes around dance as language, emotion as language, emotion as story, and story as language that have been threaded through my inquiry, it felt right to use these as the base for the artefact. At first I considered creating a dance, as this seemed completely logical for dance, emotion, and language themes. However, the more I thought about it, the more this didn't feel right. It felt as if I could have done that before the inquiry, and even before the BAPP course. I didn't think it really showed that I had learned and progressed. But the idea of languages and also story as being the 'how' rather than 'what' of dance was stuck in my head. I also thought about the inquiry process and how the language of my keyboard was used to conduct the whole thing - researching, writing blogs, zoom interviews, writing the report etc. These were such involv...

 "Creativity is intelligence having fun." - Albert Einstein A very short blog today just thinking in open space. Contemplating the artefact for my portfolio feels like a daunting task as there is so much that could be incorporated. To narrow it down I've had to really think about what has been most important, what has stood out, what means the most to me, and what I'll carry forward in my practice. Even when considering these things, there is still the problem of how to translate and represent them in some kind of artefact. There are a million different things you could do and I keep jumping from one idea to the next, but none of them feel like I can ground myself or my inquiry in them. A key point I have also been contemplating is the emphasis of the artefact showing the inquiry journey - including that of creating the artefact - as well as just what you actually found within the inquiry. It feels like a lot. In some lighthearted creativity Googling I came across thi...

  "Data will talk to you if you're willing to listen." - Jim Bergeson As I've come to realise, analysing data is a very involved enterprise that requires transformation of raw material in to something of value and meaning. Simply presenting information you found isn't enough. It has to do something. In a recent call, Helen related this to having a bunch of vegetables as your ingredients, but throwing them together in a bowl doesn't make it a meal - you have to cook them, blend them, heat them together, allow them to interact and affect each other, add your own spices, stir and blend them... you have to transform them.  And then you have a meal. In short, cook your veg. Admittedly this isn't the easiest of processes and knowing just how to cook them can be hard in itself, though this is where planning in Module 2 comes in very handy so you have established what approach or philosophical view you are taking and what steps are involved in the analysis proce...

  "Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose."  - Zora Neale Hurston, American Anthropologist Having now completed my interviews and my follow-up interviews, it feels a good time to reflect a little on the experience, mostly for my own reference and thought-showering, but if anyone can relate or take anything from it, thank you for stopping by. The first major obstacle with my interviews was actually setting the things up. My plan had been to interview two full-time dance teachers and one current professional dancer for my research into storytelling in dance education, however this proved rather difficult. After agreeing to take part, and therefore me assuming I was sorted, it took a lot of prompting to get the two dance teachers to move along with the process, and when I thought that despite the delays we were finally ready to crack on, both withdrew for their own reasons. Although understandable and part of ethical practice, as a researcher, t...

  Last week I conducted my first interview with one of my participants and have since transcribed it and begun the process of analysis. Given I have more interviews to come, I think it's helpful to reflect on how the first one transpired. Firstly, approaching the interview felt quite difficult, not in the sense of having to be the interviewer, but in being completely objective and receptive to whatever is said whilst also having a topic that you want the person to talk about. With qualitative research, interview questions are open-ended and designed to allow the participant discuss their experience in depth, which is excellent for gathering data, but it can be hard not to ask leading questions when you're trying to get them talking about a specific topic. I found a lot of what was said to not be fully relevant, which was to be expected when using an interview structure that allows the participant to take it in their own direction, and tried to allow this to happen and then brin...

  I'm a week into module three and things are already getting interesting. And also complicated. I have done a lot of reading and found various articles and books that all seem to have connections to my inquiry but in a variety of different ways. Rather than one point of focus with sub-themes and perspectives, there appear to be lots of wider topics of focus. The literature thus far has brought up many ideas and directions that the research could go in. There are many aspects to artistry, to storytelling, and to dance education as well as the importance and significance of these respectively and inter-connectedly in society, in industries, in individual practices, in children, and in the human self. In my tutorial with Sam yesterday, we discussed this wide expanse of themes, literary directives and angles of the research - and, significantly, my feeling of overwhelm from this and search of focus and direction. We concluded that the research would thus be primary data led; in order ...