Oral Presentations

I just wanted to say a huge "Good Luck" to everyone on the Oral Presentations today and tomorrow. I hope everything goes well for everyone.

I'm already getting stage fright about mine on Thursday!

Let us know how it goes!

Best wishes,
Emily

Healthier Dancer Updates

Recently I have been talking about "hub sites" which the National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science have been setting up through the Healthier Dancer Programme.

This video by the BBC shows a dancer talking about her experience at one of these Hub sites and how much it helped her to see a dance specialist who properly understood her injuries.

I previously blogged about my thoughts on whether dancers should be entitled to free specialist healthcare and discussed my opinions with a few students on the course. It is interesting to see that this is developing into an argument after collecting survey results from my participants who are spread over a wide range of professional dance companies all over the world. It is especially interesting to see that there is even a divide in the opinions from dancers.

Another point about the Healthier Dancer Programme is how little dancers seem to know about it, although this  could be due to the network of dancers that I have. Many work abroad although they reside in England. 

I think the National institute of Dance Medicine and Science would probably do well do advertise what they are doing further to gain more support. 

Had you previously heard about the programme?

How are things going?

Hi everyone, how are things going for you?
I've almost finished collecting in all of my data and have started drafting up parts of my critical review.
I actually found the interviewing really interesting. Before going ahead with it I couldn't really see different answers to the questions than my own. Some of the answers really surprised me and some were different to the observations that I had made. Did you find the same thing?
Now that I've started typing everything up I've found it's a tricky business to try and get everything out of my head and onto the page but I'm just trying not to get too snowed under with all of the information. I've found it difficult not to start evaluating in my inquiry analysis and to know which piece of what I'm trying to say should go where.
What stage are you at?
A notebook to jot down stray ideas has still been my saving grace. Is there anything else you can suggest to help?
I've also started to think about what I'm going to do for the professional artifact. This seems like quite a challenge and I've had a look at some previous blogs for some ideas but still not sure what to commit to.
Hope things are going well for everyone,
Emily

"NHS based dance injury Clinic accessible free via GP referral"

I have been spending a lot of time looking at "The Healthier Dancer Programme", which is going ahead with Dance UK. Previously in module 2 I blogged about the Healthier Dancer Programme (HDP) but now as it is going ahead I have a lot more information on the ins and outs and access to what is really going on.
This is really important to me as I am looking at ideas that the HDP is putting into practice and using some of their ideas alongside my own for inquiry.

All of the information about the HDP can be found on the Dance UK website at:
https://www.danceuk.org/healthier-dancer-programme/

The HUGE deal about this project is that it aims to help freelance dancers like myself who do not have access to specialist care for injury without either paying a lot of money to be privately seen or waiting for a long time to be seen by someone who may not be a specialist in dance. It aims to do this in many ways, one of them being setting up hub- sites around the UK.

The first hub- site is being set up and based at the Royal National Orthopedic hospital. This service is an "NHS based dance injury clinic accessible FREE via GP referral.":  Dance UK 2012,

Six Major Dance Organisations, Universities and a Hospital Unite to Launch The First National Institute of Dance Medicine & Science, DanceUK website [online], available from: https://www.danceuk.org/healthier-dancer-programme/national-institute-dance-medicine-and-science/, accessed 22nd October 2012.

This is great news for dancers but it would seem not so much for the rest of the non dancing population as I found out from the comments of an article that was published in April by the BBC news.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17846564

There are many views in the comments, most show that the audience who have read the article do not appreciate dance and a lot are flippant remarks but it has made me think that maybe it is wrong to have free treatment for our high risk sport- I can't make up my mind. On the other hand, a lot of money in the NHS is spend on things that are irrelevant to myself and one example that I know of is the help of quitting smoking and treating smoking related diseases.
Of course I believe that the NHS should treat smokers, this is just an example, but if the general public allows the NHS to spend money on projects like this where there are no health benefits of smoking in the first place (what I mean is all smokers know smoking is unhealthy before they start), why not spend money on helping injured dancers when dance has so many health benefits like increasing general fitness.

Is it wrong to spend NHS money on helping injured dancers?
Is it wrong to spend NHS money on helping ill smokers who knew the health risks?

I intend to ask my interviewees the question of whether they believe this is a good idea or not to try and justify whether or not it should go ahead. What do you as a dancer think?



 Dance UK 2012, 
Six Major Dance Organisations, Universities and a Hospital Unite to Launch The First National Institute of Dance Medicine & Science, DanceUK website [online], available from: https://www.danceuk.org/healthier-dancer-programme/national-institute-dance-medicine-and-science/, accessed 22nd October 2012.

Branwen Jeffreys, April 2012, First dance injury clinic for NHS to open, BBC news website [online], available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-17846564, accessed 22nd october 2012

Documentary Review - "First Position"

After reading Paula's Blog entry I decided to take some time out to watch the documentary "First Position". I found that as well just enjoying the documentary I could relate it to my inquiry.

First Position is a documentary that follows the lives of children and teenagers who come from a wide variation of different backgrounds through their training for an international ballet competition where they can win scholarships to prestigious ballet schools and apprenticeships to top ballet companies around the world.

The documentary filled me with amazement and inspiration and I felt very emotionally involved with what the children were going through. I felt like I could feel their passion and that the documentary stirred up my passion for dance and made me remember why I love dancing so much even though I hadn't realised that I had forgotten it.

I was surprised to see that one of the girls who the documentary focusses on is Michaela DePrince who Jacob Hughes has recently posted about. The girl who was adopted from Sierra Lione. I could not believe what a down to earth young woman she came across as being, given her traumatic past experience in life. How was she ever able to move forward from those experiences?

The documentary showed a lot of things which could be deemed to be unethical such as some of the children being fed low fat foods to keep them skinny, children dancing many hours of the day and possibly missing out on important parts of their childhood and children being painfully stretched by their parents and teachers.

The unethical point that relates to my inquiry also showed the young dancers dancing through injury. Many of the clips showed the dancers showing off their feet and how cut and bruised they were and lacking of toenails. One girl said "They look pretty in pointe shoes but not so pretty in real life." But she said this while smiling. There was also footage of dancers lying at the side of the studios, icing their injuries but they focussed quite a bit on the main injury story of Michaela DePrince.

Unfortunately Michaela became injured with tendonitis in her achilles before the final of the competition and was unsure if she would be able to take part and perform. Her family and teachers did not push her to do it if she didn't want to, but the competition was for a huge prize. In the end Michaela went to the competition.

I don't want to ruin the documentary as it's definitely one to watch so I will not reveal the outcomes but it raised some questions for me.

If the judging panel knew that injured daners were taking part should they have done something to stop this?

By taking part in the competition Michaela could have ruined all her chances of becoming a dancer by making her injury too bad to recover. Therefore is it unethical that Michaela took part in the competition or was the chance of the prize to great an opportunity to risk? 

Is it unethical that her parents allowed her to take part as she is only 14? Or, Is it ethically ok because it is Michaela who decided wether or not she should dance and take responsibility for her own body even though she is only young?

Through these questions my personal answer is that from Michaela's point of view what ever she wants to do is morally right as it is her body and therefore her decision. What do you think?

Watch this space for Michaela DePrince and my other favourite from the documentary Joan Sebastian Zamora. Amazing.

Official poster from First Position

Literature Review "Graham Crackers"

I have just uploaded a review to Google Docs, heres the link: Literature Review, "Graham Crackers" by Renee D'Aoust here's what it's about:

"A Suggestion of literature from Adesola through my feedback to read is:

Renne D’Aoust, Nov 2008, “Graham Crackers”, R Gottlieb, Reading Dance, United States: Pantheon Books, pages 749 – 755.

I would recommend many of you to read this chapter especially if you have worked or are working in a dance company. I could relate to almost everything that was happening and for every character that Renee described there is a person in my working life that is that character... though maybe not all are quite as eccentric."

If you get a chance to read it I would appreciate a bit of help. If I keep citing quotes from the same book or chapter do I need to reference them after every single quote, or is once at the beginning of the piece enough? I looked up in the handbook, but I'm not sure. Any advice much appreciated.

I have enjoyed reading published works from a professional dancer and it has inspired me to possibly review more literature published by authors in dance to gain a view from their perspective. How did they work through injury and what were the ethical implications and their opinions on this? 

Do you think this is a good idea? If not, what are you doing or do you think I could do that would possibly a be better alternative?

I am also concentrating on factual data or ideas that are being or have been bought up by projects involving more scientific explanations. Perhaps it is a good idea to focus on a mix of the two ideas.

Thanks for reading, all comments welcome and much appreciated.

What am I doing?

Many thanks to Sarah and Liam for writing up about what was discussed at the first campus session for module 3.

It's been good to see how other people have been getting started on this module and I thought by writing a blog about what I have done so far and what I plan to do could be a help to others as well as myself.

General advice has been to take a good look back at the feedback and plan from module 2 and "tweak".
I found that I was getting lost with what I needed to do. What was I supposed to be getting out of my plan? I needed to summarise it which I did in a note book under a title of "what am I actually doing?" and now I have this page sat infront of me so that if I get lost I can look at this and get my head back in the game.

So, What am I actually doing? Here is what I have summarised.

Well, in my overall inquiry I'm exploring how dancers work through injuries and how they can prevent these injuries from happening. I am looking at ideas of developing a healthy lifestyle along with the ideas of dance UK and the healthier dancer project. What are their ideas, and can I relate them to my inquiry?
I have been searching through their website and making notes on a lot of their research and plans so far. I have subscribed to their Facebook page but I am not a member of dance UK. As I would like to know so much about their project it could be a wise decision for me to become a member...

In my inquiry I'm looking at the key times that injuries occur and after my feedback have decided to look at other risks of injury. Before I was looking at simple things such as doing a good enough warm up but i've added some other variables such as whether dancers are more vulnerable when they are for example ill, tired or emotionally low - depressed, sad, stressed etc.
These different areas all have different ethical arguments about them for example the way dancers can be treated in training and rehearsals can cause a dancer to become tired and stressed and therefore more likely to become injured. Some would argue that this is wrong and others that it is a necessity to be treated that way in order to become a better dancer. So these new variables will help to discuss ethical arguments around the subject of injury.

I have also started looking more at published literature that has been written by dancers to look at their opinions and feelings on the subject.

This is all helping me to finalise the questions that I will be asking my participants in both surveys and interviews which I have also begun to jot down in my notebook.

Reading advisers blogs has also been a great help and Adesola makes a good point that I need to sticky label to the laptop:
"The module is about the process, NOT about me finding an answer to a problem..." That's where I keep going wrong, but at least I know that now.

Im also working on a timeline although this is actually a more difficult task than expected.
Notebooks are saving me. I find it easier to organise my brain on paper so I have note books filled with random words and sentences but it helps me to understand what I mean somehow.

So now that I know where I'm going I have started progressing with my literature reviews and finalising my questions for surveying and interviewing participants... watch this space, I'm watching yours!

Let's get started!

Hi everyone, I have at last been bought back up to date with technology with a smart phone! This is coming directly to you from the blogger app. So hopefully I can blog whenever, wherever!
Feeling very overwhelmed at the thought of this next module but hopefully we'll be ok.
I have seen a lot of timetabling from fellow module 3ers, I think this is the way forward to keep on top of everything and am following suit.
I've sent a summary and briefed my participants so its time to begin! Good luck everyone and post any problems or queries, hopefully we can all get through them together!

Welcome Back!

Just a quick post to say welcome back to everybody!  Hope the Summer was good, looking forwards to getting back on with everything again. Post soon! 

Critical Reflection Portfolio

Hi Everyone, here's the link to my Critical Reflection, enjoy reading!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-MxdvnnfLwvLXimWtOxUk5uzZSehQNVycHW3YLPEpSU/edit

"The Healthier Dancer Project" - Literature Review

Literature Review

Dancers’ Health Pilot Scheme article ( Dance UK News Issue 66 Autumn 2007)

http://www.danceuk.org/media/cms_page_media/136/Dancers%27%20Health%20Pilot%20Scheme%20Article%20DUKnews-66-HDP.pdf

Executive Summary of Vision and Pilot (Briefing Paper 1, DCMS Dance Forum- Dance Health 22 January2007)

http://www.danceuk.org/media/cms_page_media/136/Exec%20Summary%20of%20Vision%20and%20Pilot%20Final%20PL.doc

I have been reading over a lot of articles that all relate to the same project “ The Healthier Dancer Programme” which has been publicised by Dance UK magazine and is taking place over the course of the next 2 years.

The articles and reviews relate very well to the inquiry that I am hoping to undertake, which will involve “An exploration of how dancers work through injury and injury prevention from a dancer’s point of view”.

The fact that the inquiry I plan to take on is so topical is really exciting. I’m so relieved that a big organisation is as passionate about this subject as I am.

I shall be watching the Healthier Dancer Programme closely as I am very intrigued as to how it works out and feel that this is exactly what professional dancers need to have the best chance of sustaining their careers for a longer amount of time. If anything I hope that the project will heighten awareness of dance injury to dancers and companies and hopefully provide knowledge into injury prevention especially over cure.

I’m interested in finding out my own data from dancers that I know personally rather than just looking at numbers. I am looking forwards to looking at how some of my colleagues and associates injuries have evolved and their personal experiences so that I can understand from stories rather than numbers.

In a nutshell here is my review from the different articles that I have been reading on “The Healthier Dancer Programme”.

Since 2006 Dance UK have been promoting a national project that aims to help freelance dancers who are not entitled to free specialist medical healthcare to recover from their injuries. The project is a big deal for dancers and promises a twice yearly screening to them for their injuries and free injury care provided by dance specialists. The project is a brilliant idea and will last 2 years providing treatment equivalent to what is already available to elite sports athletes. It is hoped that the project will help to understand the infrastructure that will be needed to set up “hub-sites” around the UK where dancers can go and see specialists such as physiotherapists, nutritionists, doctors, physiologists, and psychologists etc to help treat and prevent injuries.

Finally it has been realised that all dancers need affordable access to specialist treatment and advice, not just those dancers fortunate enough to work in the top two or three dance companies.

The Project will collaborate with the top companies whose dancers already have access to specialist advice and treatment enabling a larger amount of data to be provided and be used to help research into the causes of certain injuries, how they can be treated and prevented in the future.

I feel that it has taken too long for action to be taken towards helping dancers through injury and that elite sports athletes should have funded access to injury specialists and dancers not.

The Healthier Dancer Programme states that the project will “hugely benefit dancers and enable them to push the boundaries of performance to new heights, safely”

Just imagine the new possibilities and what could be achieved by dancers if we knew more about minimising certain risks that could cause injury, or knew more about preventing injury. The standard of dance could improve phenomenally and the limits of performance could be endless. Keeping dancers at their peaks for longer means new skills can be mastered and adapted and that it is worth spending the money on becoming a professional dancer in the first place.

The cost of the project is £500, 000. I am sceptical about where the Healthier Dancer Project is going to get its money from. This is a large amount of money and some of the comments about the project were against it arguing if we can really justify spending this amount of money on researching injury and injury prevention when there are more desperate needs in the world.

I am very excited about the Healthier Dancer Programme, but is there a way that it could be done by spending less money?  

In my opinion we can justify spending money on this cause. So much money is spent on saving lives maybe it’s time that a small amount or money in the overall perspective of what is given to charity every year is spent on researching how to make the most of enjoying the lives we are living. 

Reflecting on the piloted tools 6B

After conducting my research I’ve come to the conclusion that in order to achieve the best results I’m going to have to use more than one of the tools of gathering information.

Conducting surveys is a good idea. I found it the best way to see patterns and trends among specific questions. The down side to conducting surveys is that you obviously only get answers to the questions you ask. What I mean is that you can’t really find out enough about one situation or the reasons behind an answer. I also think that surveys are a bit too impersonal, it’s easy to not quite tell the whole truth and people may be unwilling to fill one in therefore it is difficult to get people to participate. They are however useful to find patterns and problems which could be of use to research into and also useful as evidence of problems.

Interviewing others is a lot more difficult than I had originally thought. I, like many others on the course found it was difficult to keep up with the note taking whilst asking questions. A Dictaphone is a very good idea and would also be useful as evidence for the inquiry.

 Sometimes it was difficult to stick to the questions I originally wanted to ask and I realised that I needed to really plan the questions to get the information off the participant that I truly wanted.

I also found it hard to get a happy medium of formality. If the interview was too formal then the interviewee was less likely to relax into the interview and the information I would then receive from them would be a bit like the survey – they would be unlikely to elaborate on their answers. However, if the interview was too informal then we were more likely to go off at tangents and stray from the questions that I was supposed to be asking and in some cases the candidate may also not take the interview as seriously as I would have perhaps needed them too.

Observations were pleasing in the results. I found that if I was taking part in the situation and not an “onlooker” that I would get the natural results that I would be after and a lot of my questions would be answered as I’d see certain situations happen.

Observations will be a great way for me to gather information for my inquiry as I will already be in a situation with my work where this will be possible while I am taking part in rehearsals.

I have already noticed situations where dancers are at possible risk of injury such as:

•        Not keeping warm in the rehearsal when not being used.
•          Repetition of movements whilst learning choreography.
•          Girls rehearsing in heels for substantial amounts of time.

I have also noticed situations where the risk of injury has been reduced:

•          A full cast warm up takes place everyday
•          Dancers are given a good amount of time to rest between rehearsals.
•          There are enough swings to cover so less pressure to dance through injury.

It would be beneficial if I could also observe other companies in order to compare different company rules and policies. This way I will be able to discover where most of the injury risks lie, if and how different companies do certain things to prevent injuries and what needs to be bought to dancers’ attention in order to help themselves hopefully prevent or work through injury.

Conducting focus groups was quite intimidating. I only managed a couple of people at a time as I really didn’t feel confident enough with more people. I found that the small groups I interviewed flowed quite well although maybe someone with a stronger opinion would lead the other person into agreeing with what they were saying if perhaps they didn’t or didn’t as strongly as they did. I would like to try an online focus group to discuss with different associates who belong to different companies. This will take a lot of planning as there could be issues with time zones and the participants obtaining internet access but would be beneficial to again gather information and compare the different results.

Prior to piloting the different tools of gathering information I was sure that the data I would need to collect for my inquiry would be qualitative as I would need to know details behind injury and personal situations. However through taking surveys and also through reading up on previous literature that has been written about dance injury I have learned how important gathering quantitative data will also be for my inquiry. I hope to compare the results and numbers to inquiries that have taken place in the past. How do my results differ from their findings? Do dancers know more now? Has anything changed? What actions/ technology have been put in to place to help prevent injury for dancers and is it working?

Literature review 2 A Survey of injuries among Broadway Performers

Literature Review

American Journal of Public Health January 1996, Vol.86, No.1

A Survey of injuries among Broadway Performers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1380366/?tool=pubmed

Although written in 1996 this article was very interesting as it interpreted quantitative data rather than qualitative data.

The researchers surveyed different actors and dancers on Broadway and put the results into many different categories in order to decipher and understand when and why most injuries occur.

The categories are good examples of what I might use to help sort my data for my inquiry. One idea that hadn’t crossed my mind was a Raked stage as I haven’t had to work on one but it provoked a thought that I could possibly consider an extra category for those who work on ships as surely a rough sea is another risk factor for injury.

The article helped me to realise that actually quantitative data could be useful to my findings. I was starting to steer away from using it in my inquiry as I wasn’t sure that I would be able to get as much information out of the patterns and trends as I would through interviewing and observing candidates.

As a staggering number of Broadway performers had sustained injury, and "62% believed their injuries were preventable" it shows the importance of my inquiry. How do performers work through injury? What can be done to prevent these injuries?

Article Review 1: Podiatry Today

 Article Review
 Lisa M. Schoene
 Podiatry today http://www.podiatrytoday.com/article/3468
 What you should know about dance injuries
 Volume 18- issue 1 – January 2005

This article highlights the point that dancers and teachers need to be educated about dance injury. It also stresses the importance of finding injury early to “reduce the risk of damaging or career threatening injuries”.

I agree that dancers and teachers do need to be more educated about injury. In my opinion a lot of dancers go out into the world feeling invincible and don’t take the correct precautions to prevent injury not necessarily because they don’t care but because they don’t realise the difference that taking these precautions can make.

The article also points out that “rehabilitation has become more accepted”, then somewhat contradicts itself by also stating “when they suffer injuries they may seek medical care outside of the company’s medical staff and pay out of pocket in order to conceal injury. Dancers realise that their contract may be scrutinised for past injury and ultimately lead to dismissal.”

This is what I have found so far in my career. People will work through pain simply so they can keep their jobs. If you don’t dance you can’t work and the industry is very unforgiving. There are always people there to fill your shoes. I have also noticed that sometimes the company does not provide the professional healthcare such as physiotherapy or specialists in dance that a working dancer needs. Even if it does the dancer is likely to have to pay for the treatment they receive. It is totally dependent on the company and their policy. But why does this differ throughout the profession?

For example: One of my colleagues trapped her hand in the set during the show. She broke her hand through no fault of her own and was sent home to recover with no sick pay or compensation. There was no treatment or help provided by the company so instead she had to pay out of her own pocket to recover. The article backs up my ideas of inquiry of working through injury as it shows there are many discrepancies of what should and should not be expected of dancers and the pressures of working through injury. It also agrees with my point of there needing to be a greater education about injury and injury prevention among dancers.

What do you think?

Ice or Heat?

Dancers!! Are you fully aware of when to ice and when to heat an injury? I found this article it's pretty simple but explains how injuries should be treated. This is something that as professionals we should know, but do we? Do we put it into pratcice?

Rehearsals Begin

Hey fellow Bappers. Been unable to get online for a week and there are now mounds of new posts on the blogs that I'm trying to keep up with! Just started work here and the difference between this job and my last is unbelievable. It makes such a difference being based in one place and the atmosphere is so different here. I wouldn't say the differences are better or worse, just very different! I would say though, that we have been very well looked after! I am already making observations from the rehearsals and recording them in my journal. The new dancers have been made to feel very welcome here. The cast is around 33. 16 international dancers and 17 (as far as I have counted) Spanish dancers. The show involves classical flamenco dancing and the usual showgirl style, jazz and heel work that I was expecting. All the dancers dance all the styles so it is going to be a challenge to learn some Spanish! Hope all the inquiry plans are coming along well. I have begun to write mine out but discovered I was struggling to find things to talk about. Alan and Paula's blogs have been very helpful in inspiring new ideas for the plan. Ive started to save some links on delicious. Im hoping that if you click the link you will be able to see them? maybe you will find them as useful as I am! http://delicious.com/embren Hope all is going well for everyone Emily x

refining inquiry ideas

It's been so difficult to decide what I want to base my inquiry on. Has anybody else found that they have had so many ideas that have taken them off on so many different tangents?! Starting off with performing and management I began speaking to other people and developing my ideas. I realised that management is something that I would really like to consider toward the end of my dancing carer but it's not relevant to my work right now and there's a lot more that I need and want to learn about the performing side of the dance industry before I move forward down the management route. Getting stuck into the ethics part of the module I discovered how strongly I feel about things being done in the correct way. It made me think over many situations in my life, not just dance that may not have been ethically dealt with in the right way. The fact that so many rules are "unwritten" due to many aspects such as culture, religion and even personal opinions made me want to delve further and further into the subject of ethics alone. I considered inquiring into ethics and how well different companies adhere to their policies and how different their standards and expectations were from one another but this would have been such a broad subject and so controversial. As ethics is a lot to do with people's decisions would the inquiry have been a benefit to performers such as myself? I continued chatting to others and asking questions and I felt my survey helped to pin point other problems. A big (or small if your lucky) part of a dancers life is injury. At some point in your career as a dancer it is likely that you will sustain an injury of some kind. Even the most minor of injuries can cause a lot of frustration. This lead me to my inquiry idea of "Dancers working through injury". What support is available out there for dancers with injury? What can be done to prevent it? What can be done to help cope with it? I feel that ethics will play a great part in the inquiry. Different employers may expect different things. If dancers know what to expect, how to deal with their injury, how to help prevent future injury then I feel this will benefit them a great deal possibly even help to extend their performing life. I also thought that it would be good for me to see from a dancers point of view the support that is needed or expected? What doesn't happen? This will help me in the future on the management side of the industry. Hopefully my inquiry will help me find the best ways to keep my dancers in shape and help them through injury when I need to. Does anyone else feel that they will benefit from this inquiry? I'd like to hear from you

Pilot Survey

Hi everyone so this is my pilot survey if any of you would mind taking a minute to try it out it would be greatly appreciated, thank you http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ZJMPFYR  or do it here:

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Discussions

Hi guys, are there any good discussions going on? I really want to get stuck in but there doesn't seem to be a lot happening on linked in, maybe I just can't find it? How are everyone's ideas for inquiry's inquiry plans going?  Get in touch! x

Friedrichstadt-Palast Berlin

Hi everyone, I've just got back from a visit to Berlin. I was supposed to be auditioning for the Friedrichstadt- Palast but found out that I had just got my new job pretty much as soon as I'd booked the flights to go over there. I ummed and ahhed about going to the audition but in the end decided against it. Although it would have been a great experience for me to go and be seen I knew they were looking for people to start in July and so I didn't want to waste their time and also I didn't know if it was really allowed. Maybe the company I'm about to go and work for wouldn't have been very pleased if they'd found out I'd been auditioning elsewhere. I'm not sure, I think it's another one of those "unwritten rules"!
Anyway, I decided seeing as I was there to get tickets to see the show...well... it was the most amazing show I have ever seen!
The theatre was just beautiful! The set, the costumes, the lighting - there had been no expense spared. The auditorium was full and the tickets weren't exactly cheap! It made me wonder how it's thriving so well when there are so many theatres and companies in crisis at the moment.
The choreography in most numbers was stunning and the dancers technique was exquisite. The style of the dancing is a fusion really of Jazz contemporary and ballroom but all the dancers have a strong classical base and it showed. There was not one dancer who let the cast down and it was a big cast. We counted 31 girls in the most stunning kick line before the interval and they were so clean and perfect it was so inspiring. The stage was huge when the curtain went up at the beginning the dancers looked so far away and then the moving stage bought them forwards... just fabulous. There was aerial work which took my breath away. My heart was in my mouth when a couple on the straps did amazing lifts high above the stage and the band was live which was the icing on the cake for the show.
I really urge you visit the website http://www.show-palace.eu/en/ and there's a little promo on there to give you a taster. If you're ever in Berlin you must visit!