Recently a lot of academics have focused on how we learn rather than what we learn. Reflective practice is very important in the development of professionals as it enables us to learn from our experiences enabling us to improve future projects.

Learning, especially in Dance, forms a constant cycle, which according to Kolb’s theory is formed into four phases, feeling, watching, thinking and doing. Each learner undertakes each respective stage but entering the cycle could be at a different point for every individual. For me personally doing the chosen task is the primary source of learning but now I have understood Kolb’s Cycle, looking deeper I execute each stage, some more that others, to further my learning. I am now going to take an occasion when I undertook each stage to improve.

In our second year we had an assignment to create an in-house production from scratch. This was a preliminary task for the major task that we were to be given in our third year. I chose to choreograph a piece with twenty dancers, boys and girls that was to establish a theme of morals and traditional sayings. Simply I found the music and created ideas for choreography in my head ignoring the theme element of the piece hoping that the link would naturally emerge throughout rehearsals. In a sense I just went to the forefront of a piece without any planning or experimentation. The section came together over the following weeks, with the dancers practicing and evaluating there own performances until the penultimate week where by now a theme needed to be in place. Creating emotion in dance is a wonderful talent and when used correctly can stir an audience immensely, however time is needed for the creation of layers of passion in a dancer to get the desired effect. Undeniably, I had left it too late. During the final performance, I looked at what I had created and I saw a lovely dance not what I had hoped for a epic story portrayed by dance. Although teachers and my peers enjoyed the piece I was not content knowing how enhanced it could have been if I had planned and explained the theme and emotion to my cast prior to one week before. This was my concrete experience and watching my piece back was my reflective observation which encompassed me witnessing the faults of the piece first hand.

After the shows were finished I had time to reflect on what I had produced and how I could of made it better. Simply more time was needed to be spent on the evolution of the story line and its impact on the performers. However looking deeper into the process that I went through to create the piece it lacked structure, experimentation and alteration, there was a complete absence of any cycle to create my choreography and in turn make it better. I also realised that creating a piece with twenty performers was a hard task to establish a unison interpretation. I knew that this second year activity was a practice for the final third year assessment, so therefore didn’t worry to much about the problems I had faced but to research into them more and look at ways to overcome my tribulations so they didn’t effect my final pieces. I spent a lot of time searching the internet for other peoples opinions and processes which they choreograph and I came across a selection of blogs on www.dance-tech.net which later became a very important resource in my choreography projects. It was interesting to read these blogs which other choreographers had posted as it showed the individuality of this medium, there didn’t seem to be a specific route I must take when choreographing but each user had mentioned how they had gone back to alter original ideas and had always began with a concept. These concepts were all different, some people mentioned they had done research into news articles to get inspiration, some had written poems, some based ideas on books or articles, one person mentioned they tried to create a moving reproduction of a painting and simply one person mentioned they began with improvisation themselves alone in a dance studio. On the internet I also came across a more structured process of choreography which had been posted onto encyclopedia Britannica’s website.

‘The choreographic process may be divided for analytical purposes (the divisions are never distinct in practice) into three phases: gathering together the movement material, developing movements into dance phrases, and creating the final structure of the work’

I found this article very interesting and it also helped me learn how to plan the stages of my choreography, much like the blogs it mentioned that the first phase of the choreography process of gathering information is very individual. The second part of the cycle described helped me realise that I needed to develop my pieces, ‘Once a phrase has been constructed, it can be built onto in many different ways’ I understood now that I needed to layer the choreography from the basic structure it began with to develop it and make it more effective.

Overall in the time that I spent to research other ideas involving choreography and other opinions, my understanding of evolving a phrase of dance greatened and through my third part of Kolb’s cycle, abstract conceptualization, I was ready for my final assignment and create a much deeper piece of choreography.

Active Experimentation is the final part of Kolb’s cycle before it restarts with a concrete experience. When I arrived at the task to create a piece of choreography to do with current affairs in my third year, I felt much more prepared now I had tried it first hand and also researched others ideas on the structure of choreography. I started my choreography firstly at home on my own, researching ideas and backgrounds for my piece which was based on Missing People, I looked into real life stories and also movements that I thought blended well, then when I was faced with my performers, (I only chose three this time) I discussed first what the concept and the background of the piece was before I started the dance part. Once I had created the dance and the students knew the concept I went back to the start and began to build in new elements of choreography, highlights and storylines. Overall this piece was much more successful as my performers understood what they were try to portray rather than just dancing it. There were still parts of the structure and the process that I could change but that is why Kolb’s learning cycle works because it doesn’t have an end so you can keep on learning from work you have created by reflecting on it.