2d Inquiry Task

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiasitc to find out more about? Who do you admire who also works with what makes you enthusiastic?

I started dancing form the age of three and have always wanted to be a dancer. At about twelve years old I started acting at a stage school and really loved the feeling of capturing an audiences imagination and taking them on a journey of emotions through happiness to sadness. When I was fourteen I went to the Brit school and was in the dance strand, I then had the opportunity to participate in some acting classes which I found really useful. After graduating from the Brit school i went on to Italia Conti Arts Centre, whilst here I did all of my dance exams and I always felt that dancing was my strongest area as a performer  However I always loved my acting classes and I had some great acting teachers. During my acting training we had a really strict teacher who I now admire, she stripped our emotions down to the point where we would be crying our eyes out, at the time this didn't seem like acting, but after the initial breakdown of the class, everyone was beginning to change and grow as actors. I realized that this particular exercise broke down our boundaries, and as a class and individually, it allowed us to go on an emotional journey. After these particular exercises, we  executed many plays. We were given characters and was asked to study and build on them at home. After given the opportunity to perform as a character on  stage I found myself really enthusiastic about acting and wanted to find out more techniques and ways of making myself better as an actress.  When I graduated from Italia Conti I went straight into dancing and did various dance jobs and auditions, however I didn't have many acting jobs come up. It also didn't help the fact that I didn't have an agent. I was so desperate to carry on my acting training and get into the industry of acting and TV as well as dancing, that I  searched for an acting coach who may be able to help me on my journey. My acting coach who I have now has been a great admiration, he has built my confidence as a performer and made me believe that I can become a professional actress one day. He has made me really enthusiastic about acting and I learn something new each week. I didn't realise how much there was to learn and during my classes I have studied "Shakespeare" and many other plays and acting techniques, which I am enthusiastic to learn more about and grow as a actress.                   


What gets you angry or makes you sad? who do you admire who shares your feelings or has found a way to work around the sadness or anger?

the things that get me angry and sad are people who don't try. During college I found myself making goals in order to achieve exams and things that i wanted to use as a tool for my future as a performer. I was really lucky at college to have a great friend who was in the same boat as me and if we felt down we would encourage each other. We would both motivate each other in everything we did and even if we didn't get a part we really wanted we would be there for each other as a comfort. Unfortunately because we were so driven throughout our vocational training, we would sometimes get held back by negativity by other in our groups. I always have found negativity as a dark cloud and I like to surround myself with positive energy. I always find that negativity can only do one thing and that is hold you back, I know everyone can be negative at some points in their life, but to be like it everyday is another path that you are choosing to rule your life in. Even after graduating I get bad and good days but if I do have a bad day or feel negative thoughts coming on then I ring my friend and she always seems to build my confidence and motivates me again. I also use the gym as this is a really good way of  releasing endorphin's, and always makes me feel better after.


What do you love about what you do? who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

The reason I love what i do is because there is no other feeling that will amount to the adrenaline you feel on stage or in a class when performing . I also love to take people on a journey and make them laugh or cry when acting, or in dancing I like to capture the audiences eye and perform to my best ability. Sometimes if i feel creative or have any emotions i want to release i put some music on and dance, this allows me to zone out and focus on myself and always makes me feel good after. I love creating a character in acting and having no limitations to how the character feels, what they say, where they come from, what they look like and what there personality is like. As well as loving the feeling of performing. One of the people who are an example of what I love is my acting coach, as he is someone that has done so much with his career in acting and I would love to follow in his footsteps and be as successful as he has. He also demonstrates amazing characters and when he shows me how how its done by demonstrating himself I sometimes end up crying because as an audience he has taken me on an emotional journey. My good friend is a great example of what we both love of dancing, she is a very positive person and will always be someone to motivate you. In a dance training class we will go through timing and steps together and give each other a boost before performing in groups.


What do you feel you don't understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or has found a way of making not understanding it interesting or beautiful, or has asked the same questions as you?
After graduating I found it really hard to understand and keep positive after receiving a few knock backs during auditions and not getting jobs that I really wanted,  which I felt I really worked hard for. I sometimes would compare myself to others and feel that I was a stronger dancer or performer than them, and couldn't quite grasp why they were picked to do the job. But after discussions with lots of people in the industry we realized it could be down to small aspects such as looks, height, length or color of hair etc. My friend has also told me of many auditions she has been to and felt exactly the same. The way we understand this it is just a matter of the right person at the right time, sometimes this can be due to just luck, so I have found that you have just got to work to the best of your ability and hopefully one day you will be the lucky straw.

Journal Writing Experience

I have had quite a few weeks to write in my journal and reflect on lots of things i have learnt in classes I  participate in and classes i  teach, Because i am still training and auditioning whilst teaching I feel I am in two different worlds being a teacher then going to the other side of becoming a student again. 
I decided to write two journals looking at theses two different aspects of teaching and being a student again.
I am going to discuss my journal of being a student in a acting class.
After my acting classes a few weeks back I thought to myself  I should write a journal on these classes as I was asked a question which I couldn't remember the answer to which I learnt in a previous class. I decided to make a journal of everything we do and new things I learn in the lesson, and it wasn't until I read  "Melanie Brown's" journal writing experience, that I realised exactly the same as her of  "how rewarding and beneficial writing a journal can be."


After looking at the techniques to support my writing and reflective practise in my journal, it  helped me reflect and remember every detail I learnt in the class so I wouldn't be caught in a situation where I didn't know the answer again (which I have now learnt..)

I found it really fun and easy to read  when using illustrated pictures,graphs,spider diagrams and charts. It was a great way of reminding myself of significant  words and their meanings, which I found really useful and eye catching. .Due to me being dyslexic I found that when writing the journal, using  pictures and a highlighter to colour certain words and titles reminded me that the information written  were important facts and I knew this was a technique that would allow me to remember significant information, so was very useful to me and I found is my best way of learning and reflecting.
Writing  lists of things in bullet-points and numbers of thing that I needed to do at home so that I wouldn't forget, which I found visually stood out on paper and was easy for me to understand and read

I found that I couldn't stop writing when expressing my feeling and initial thoughts in my journal , which I felt was my initial reflection. I found that although I would be able to understand it easily, however if someone else was to read it, it probably wouldn't make sense until I explained it to them in detail. Overall this technique allowed me to tune in with the lesson and my emotional encounter on the day, and also what I learnt in the class from my own perspective.


I also found that I described the events in the class in great detail and the emotions I felt at the time, this was a great  way to write short  sentences for e.g. emotion: (feeling sad) in a character based play but I wasn't able to expand on it to a great deal.

In my journal I added my own view on what I learnt in the class and realised that I started to use my imagination by stepping out of the box and I reflected on scenarios which might happen to me and things that I could try out in an audition which I didn't actually learn in the class itself, but learnt the grounding methods for. This technique has allowed to grow as an actress and become more knowledgeable in my chosen subjects.

In my journal of the acting class I wrote down some important names of actors and teachers for e.g.: "Stanisvlansky" and "Shakespeare." In my reflection process I explored these people and learnt that they were very inspirational practitioners to actors all over the world . Looking at these practitioners named in my journal allowed me to research through "Wiki and Google" to get a better understanding of how important these people were and allowed me to expand my knowledge and learning. This technique I found really useful as the source of information I received I could use to my advantage at anytime to research and get another persons view other than just one person. 

I felt that when evaluating how the class went and what I learnt it allowed me to get a better picture of the class from beginning to end and re-live what it was like again. It allowed me to sum up important points and facts that all came together which I learnt,. I felt like the evaluating part was  like "layers" building up through the journal to conclude to  the main point as the summary. It also gave me an opportunity  to show my point of view and allowed me to find areas in the journal that I could explore,  if i didn't feel it made sense, without any restrictions.

earning without even realizing.