Alys Davies BAPP Blog

 Photo: Josh Gordon via Unsplash.com My inquiry is based around the financial behaviours and attitudes of professional dancers and how these are influenced by ‘dance culture’.    ‘Dance culture’ itself has been extraordinarily difficult to define, given the relatively sparse existing literature on it and the varied experiences of individual dancers. The ambiguity of the term was one of my main motivations for including it in my inquiry, since clearly more research and discussion is required. Furthermore, it may even be that ‘dance culture’ spills into other areas of our lives, such as personal finance, but also into the way we think and behave in other situations.    I’ll start with my experience and opinion. In my opinion, ‘dance culture’ denotes a culture of power imbalances between dancer and choreographer/director/teacher, a culture of self-sacrifice, and a culture of obedience, acquiescence and perfectionism. This mainly came through my professional trainin...

  I wrote a post at the start of Module 2 describing how confused and overwhelmed I felt. I was hoping that at the start of Module 3 I would feel a bit more in control, but that isn’t the case. I wasn’t particularly happy with my Module 2 results, so I thought maybe this module I could try a new approach. I’ve been re-reading all my submissions and going over my feedback and inquiry plan, desperately trying to feel more in control of everything.    The issue is, the very nature of data collection, and of a career in the professional dance industry, is that it’s unpredictable. There’s only so much you can control and hold on to. Even in class, as much as you try to be in complete control of your body, some movement needs relaxation and surrender to truly work. Not to mention the many ‘happy accidents’ through error and losing control that result in movement you never would have discovered otherwise.    This module I am going to try a different approach. I’ll stil...