Inquiry Aims and Objectives

In order to make a start on my final inquiry I felt it would be beneficial to make a list of my aims and objectives. As my inquiry has taken a slight turn from what it originally was this has helped me to put my thoughts in order and also have a base to work from. I also plan to have print outs available to inform my participants about my inquiry so they know exactly what it entails and my overall goal. The following is still a work in progress. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

TITLE (in progress):
An inquiry into the life and death of Celebration Music Theatre. What led to the downfall and whether we were on a downward spiral from the beginning? What happened in management? How did this affect the employees and performers?  What makes a successful theatre company? How can dancers work through this type of situation whether preparing for the next job or in career transition? How does this compare to the national and international performing scene?

AIMS:

* To look into the breakdown of Celebration Music Theatre, discovering what happened in management and what led to the downfall of the company. Comparing that to my professional background so far and to theories about running theatres/arts organisations.

* Discover what organisational structure works best in a professional theatre and what key factors help run a successful entertainment company.

* Inquire into the local entertainment venues, what problems they may be facing and comparing that to the national and international theatre scene

* Look at the dancer perspective. Inquire into how dancers cope with unemployment periods and how you can prepare yourself for future contracts

* Look at career transition for dancers. Mainly focusing on what skills a dance professional needs in order to gain a career in dance/arts management. .

OBJECTIVES:

* To carry out research into the following areas; the life and death of companies, dance management, skills for production managers, theatre organisation structure, entertainment in the Myrtle Beach area an information on first year of a new business

* To discover what it takes to set-up, run and manage a successful theatre company

* To conduct interviews with ex-employees of the theatre, other entertainment managers in the surrounding area not related to the theatre and investors and/or the theatre owner

* To create a new show-reel for future employers to view that showcases my skills as a dancer as well as my new skills learnt from the theatre in choreography. To aid my professional development as a performer.

Revising my Inquiry Plan

                                               RE-DIRECTION

 I have had to make some changes to my inquiry plan due to the fact that the theatre I was working at closed over the summer. The main reason for this was lack of funds. Since my inquiry was centered around the theatre and looking into the management there etc I have had to make some changes.


At first I was unsure what route to go. My inquiry involved looking at management and helping the theatre to succeed. Now there is no show and it has closed what could I inquire about? After my conversation with Paula yesterday, I realised that there are many issues there. What led to the downfall? What happened to management? How are the dancers dealing with this family organisation breaking up? When I say family organisation, it was not run by a family but felt like a home to many of us. We were all very close and treated eachother as such. But there are many issues with the way in which the theatre was run, what decisions were made and by whom and the organisational structure.
I also feel my time there developed my skills as a manager, being the dance captain and choreographer. I had never choreograhed in a professional setting before and now can put that on my CV. So some good came out of the experience for me personally. Financially there are still many ex-employees owed a lot of money, myself inclded and law suits going ahead. I still plan to interview employees of the theatre but will ensure they are kept anonomous for ethical reasons.

I am still focussing on the theatre, looking at what led to the downfall rather than how to improve management. This will still touch on management and marketing issues, what skills are needed for roles in arts and dance management as well as moving on from one job to another as a performer and career transition.

I decided to edit my plan using Wikispaces. This way you can see my original plan and the altered parts highlighted in blue. You can check this out at: https://inquiryplan.wikispaces.com/Inquiry+Plan

Back in the game...

Hello my fellow BAPP friends!

Well after 3 days of trying to log onto myUniHub, I finally got a new password and I'm in! I like the new layout and the fact that I can access everything on one site.

It has been a crazy summer. Things have been..well hectic. The theatre I was working at has now shut its doors due to not making enough money this summer. There are deals in the work to sell the building and produce a brand new show. I am currently involved in the set up and some initial ideas to start this brand new theatre, so we will see what happens. Needless to say I haven't thought much about the course what with planning a wedding although I feel things have happened that I have made note of that may come in handy to my inquiry.

I have now downloaded the new 3760 modules, which I plan to read through this weekend. I may be making a slow start but I am now ready to tackle this final module and really focus on my inquiry. I will be writing some upcoming blogs on my thought and ideas.

Unfortunately, I will be unable to make any campus sessions this semester so I am relying on all your blogs to keep me updated as to what went on.

Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

Critical Reflection and Summary: Digital Portfolio

In this module, WBS3835 I have examined my professional practice further by looking at how others have defined inquiry and research. I have engaged with the BAPP network as well as my professional work community to refine my questions and ideas.

The first part of this module looked at developing lines of professional inquiry. My first sets of questions were to understand the difference between leaders and managers and the roles of each (Appendix A). Asking these questions allowed me to examine my own workplace and any issues there. I discussed these questions further on my Facebook SIG (Appendix B), which then led to discussing skills managers should posses. Here we found the most important skills to be communication, leadership, decision making, organizational and analytical. I further developed and expanded my set of questions and took these to my workplace to gain some insight from my colleagues. I decided to conduct two informal interviews on with a manager and one with a dancer (Apendix C) that looked into managerial roles and skills and then into career transitioning from performer to manager.

The second part of this module looked at professional ethics. I found this a very interesting part of the module as it was something I had not considered much before this. I learnt how important it is to adhere to ethical standards in my inquiry especially where people are involved to ensure no harm is caused. I started by looking at my workplace and what the code of practice might be there (Appendix D) as a dancer and then as a manager or director. I then researched what my current code of practice is as a swing and dance captain in the show (Appendix E), which helped me to have a better understanding of what is expected of me in this new company. I examined the core values of my workplace (Appendix F) as well as my personal virtues (Appendix G). I learnt just how important ethics are in business. The trustworthiness of a business, the customer service, customer care, the way they are taken care of and the urge to retain their customers are all part of business ethics. Business ethics leave a long lasting impression on a customer, which build trust and helps retain them and a strong ethical value can take a business a long way. In my professional inquiry it will be vital to gain permission from managers in my workplace and consent from any participants I use.

The final part of this module examined the different inquiry tools I can use to carry out my professional inquiry. Here I learnt the different ways in which knowledge can be collected, analyzed and interpretated to aid my line of inquiry. Course Reader 6 set gave a brief introduction to the different tools used for inquiry (Appendix H). Here I learnt how to conduct a survey using survey monkey (Appendix I), in which BAAP students were participants. I was also given some feedback from my SIG about the way in which questions were worded and some of my answer options. I now feel confident in going forward and creating a new survey and feel this is an important tool to gain quantative information for my inquiry. I also conducted a pilot interview (Appendix J), pilot observation (Appendix K), focus group and reflected on the merits and limits of each (Appendix L).  Conducting pilots of each tool has helped me to gain a better understanding of how to use these tools to gain the best results. For example, the next time I use the observation tool I will video tape what it is I am analyzing as you cannot always write everything down.

I have also learnt how to review literature to gain more knowledge on management. Doing this has also opened up more topics and ideas, for example looking into career development programs in theatres in order to train managers in house. (Appendix M)

Finally, I have been introduced to a new tool ‘Delicious’ (Appendix N). This enables me to bookmark any relevant websites or sources of information I may need to refer to for my line of inquiry. I have found this very easy to use and a great way to easily access the sites I often refer to.

Summary

The tasks carried out over the course of this module have enabled me to develop my initial ideas into a line of inquiry. I have learnt how ethics will play an important part not only in conducting my inquiry but also in my everyday practice as a dancer and how good work ethics can help you go a long way in business. I have tried and tested tools of professional inquiry- survey, observation, focus group and observation- analyzing which might be the best to use in my inquiry and learning how to improve on them next time around. Reviewing literature has allowed me to see what has been written about arts management and what has not, why my inquiry is relevant and how it adds to what has already been written. I now feel I have the knowledge and understanding to propose my inquiry plan.

Appendix

Appendix A

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/4a-questions.html

Appendix B

http://www.facebook.com/pages/BA-Professional-Practice-Arts-Middlesex-University/145821545478191?sk=app_2373072738#!/topic.php?uid=145821545478191&topic=62

Appendix C

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/4c-developing-questions-within.html

Appendix D

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/5a-work-ethicscode-of-practice.html

Appendix E

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/5b-codes-of-practice.html

Appendix F

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/core-values-and-work-ethics.html

Appendix G

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/5c-professional-ethics.html

Appendix H

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/03/tools-of-professional-inquiry.html

Appendix I

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6a-pilot-survey.html

Appendix J

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6a-pilot-interview.html

Appendix K

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6a-pilot-observation.html

Appendix L

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6b-critical-reflection-on-four-tools-of.html

Appendix M
http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6c-literature-reviews.html

Appendix N

http://lauraweir2001.blogspot.com/2011/04/6d-delicious-tags.html

6c Literature Reviews

Literature Reviews

During the course of this module I have begun collecting relevant literature and resources that relate to my professional inquiry. I have tagged many links on my Delicious page, which some of you might find useful as well. The following are three different literature reviews I found that relate to the key themes and ideas of my inquiry.  

1.      Beyond Performance

Mindy Levine Advocacy Report

Article can be found at:  http://www.iotpd.org/beyond_performance.pdf

My first review is taken from Beyond Performance: Building a better future for dancers and the art of dance by Mindy N. Levine. It builds on a three-year research study, Making Changes: Facilitating the Transition of Dancers to Post- Performance Careers. It aims to set out actions that people in the dance field, organizations and the government should be taking in order to aid a dancer’s career transition. They found that dancers are not very well informed of the challenges faced in career transition. Their research highlights common problems artists currently face:

-          Low compensation

-          Short career duration

-          Unstable employment

-          Management support

-          Absence of contractual protections i.e. health benefits

-          Information gaps (uninformed of the challenges)

This research was carried out internationally and showed that dancers tend to be badly compensated not only compared to regular jobs but to other art disciplines as well. This leads dancers to having to pursue other paid work, such as the promotional work I take in between contracts in order to continue auditioning. Due to the short career as a dancer we have less time to save up funds to aid career transition such as re-training. Also highlighted is a dancer’s unstable employment, which I can relate to. Jumping from contract to contact means my income can differ year to year. Taking time out to audition costs money and full year contracts are hard to come by making access to benefits much harder. In the survey carried out support from management in a company was very low where the majority of support came from family and friends. I feel that the current company I work for will help aid me in my career transition, however I agree that my family have always been the main support throughout my career.

The article points out that “At a juncture when most adults are hitting their professional stride, dancers must embark on second careers”. This is exactly why I have embarked on this degree course in order to have sufficient educational knowledge for a second career. A dancers career is short lived, they must have a back-up plan.

“Professional dancers face unique career transition challenges, which diverge significantly from professionals in other arts disciplines and other physically demanding fields.” (Beyond Performance)

This research is relevant to my inquiry as it highlights how tough it is for dancers to make a career transition successfully. It even suggests arts organizations are not paying enough attention to their artists in helping them through this process. This is something I feel very strongly about and hope my inquiry might be able to change this especially in my current workplace where it is a new company. By reviewing this piece of literature I developed a new inquiry question:

How can arts companies help their artists/performers through career

transition from onstage to offstage?

2.      Matching managers to the mayhem, madness and miracle

of America’s professional theatres

Jim Volz. Grand Valley State University Theatre Management Article

 Article can be found at: http://www.gvsu.edu/theatre/index.cfm?id=4BC6D102-F34F-35D5-DBF364A0474C5DB5

(This article originally appeared in the January 2007 issue of AMERICAN THEATRE MAGAZINE.  It is reprinted here by permission of the author.  Jim Volz is the author of HOW TO RUN A THEATER [2005] and THE BACK STAGE GUIDE TO WORKING IN REGIONAL THEATER [2007] and a professor at California State University, Fullerton)

Jim Volz is one of America’s leading theater consultants with over three decades of work with theater, dance, music, museum and arts center management. He has carried out research into over a thousand regional theatres across America. In this article he points out we are coming to an arts crisis whereby theatres are finding it hard to hold down their managers. Many leave the stressful, under-paid and over-worked life in the theatre for a more stable position somewhere else.

He goes on to ask about University training as opposed to practical experience. John M McCann argues that there is no specific way of breaking into the arts management field as many aspects such as accounting, human resources and production can either be learned in school or on the job. I agree with this statement as I am currently assistant producer and choreographer for our upcoming Broadway show. Having never done either before it is a case of trial and error along the way. I am learning what works and what doesn’t in order to refine my professional practice. However, I feel formal training helps to give a solid base of knowledge to then take into the workplace. Volz points out that even having a degree will not guarantee employment as a manager. His view is that practical experience can be gained from internships and work experience (paid or unpaid). Text books can only prepare someone so much for the real life work situations that arise.   

Another way to break into management may be to rise through the ranks. However few theatres have the time or money to support professional career development. This echoes a point from the article ‘Beyond Performance’ where they found the majority of career transition support came from family and friends rather than employers. This is something I wish to explore further in my inquiry, looking into the theatres that do have in-house employee development programs and how successful they are.

Something that really struck a chord with me was when Jim asks whether we should adopt a new mantra of trying to make a “life worth living” rather than the old “work for the love of the art”. He points out that many great managers end up leaving theatres because of being over-worked and under-paid and there are many turn-offs to the business that is leading to an arts crisis. I personally have known many great creative minds that have left the entertainment industry to either re-train for or pursue a more financially stable position.

3.      Managing the Arts: Leadership and Decision Making under Dual Rationalities

David Cray; Loretta Inglis; Susan Freeman

Journal of Arts Management, Law, and Society; Winter 2007; 36, 4;

 Article can be found at: http://www.jamk.fi/download/29488_Reading_3.pdf

This article tries to draw similarities between models of leadership with that of art organizations.

Something this article does point out is that “much of the sparse literature in arts management is framed in terms of “best practice” based on a few isolated cases. A more systematic approach is needed, one that uses existing concepts and models to understand precisely how arts organizations operate”. There seems to be little research on the structure of arts organizations. In my current company managers take on many different roles for example the Artistic Director also acts as Producer and Managing Director.

“Many arts organizations espouse participatory styles of leadership” Participative leadership involves all team members in defining goals and developing ways in which to achieve them. I feel this is the type of leadership my theatre currently has as it is a relatively small theatre and everyone in management has an active role in developing ideas. Many of the managers are ex-performers and they have been allowed to have creative input as well as using their talents in various shows or promotions. David Cray, Loretta Inglis and Susan Freeman have also explored aspects of management and leadership in arts organizations in Australia and found they are often led by more than one person just as the theatre I work at is run between the Artistic Director, technical director, producer and administrators. When they conducted interviews the feedback they gained was that in a small theatre environment a dictator does not work. They operate more like a small family, which reflects the way in which my company works. They conclude that the organizations studied do not have a single leader, but that leadership is shared and there was strong evidence that all the leaders studied were transformational leaders. Transformational leaders emphasize trust, their most important values, confidence and are admired as role models. Again I feel this reflects the style of leader I am working under.

It is important to recognize leadership styles in arts organizations if trying to transition into this career. Looking at this research shows how leaders in arts organizations differ to many other businesses, leadership is often shared and therefore comes with different challenges.

Most recently arts organizations have been under pressure to become more professional on the managerial side of the business in order to gain funding. With this being said, arts organizations have aesthetic concerns that managers must take into consideration. If a theatre presents a profitable but quickly and badly thrown together show it is sure to gain criticism. On the other hand if it comes up with a new and original show it is likely to have financial stress.

 

6b Critical Reflection on four Tools of Professional Inquiry

Merits and limits of my four pilot inquiry tools

I have now carried out a pilot for each of the following four tools; interview, survey, focus group and observation. I found each of these to be useful in different ways to my inquiry. The interview was a great way to get a detailed view on my subject, the survey gave me a variety of results which I could analyze percentages, the focus group enabled me to have a range of views and discuss different topics and the observation was a good way to watch the company operate and people's behavior.

Interview

For my pilot interview I decided to ask our technical manager/producer of the show some questions. He has been working in the entertainment industry for years so was a great person to interview due to his vast technical and managerial experience. The most appropriate way to hold this was to set up a meeting in his office for a short semi-structured interview. I had a set of questions I planned to ask and recorded the answers by taking notes.

Advantages:
- Here I could have a one on one discussion with him which allowed for clarification
- It was easy to set up and conduct
-  I could adapt and clarify the question by repeating or rephrasing it
- Any problems that the participant experiences I can observe through watching body language and reading facial expressions something you can't do in a survey or telephone interview
- You get a more reliable response
- You can explain the purpose of the interview and how it will be used face-to-face
Disadvantages:
- It can be hard to not probe for answers and affect the responses
- It is one persons view on a subject
- Geographic limitations if it needs to be done nationally or internationally
- Can be costly in terms of travelling to location

Survey

For this I used Survey Monkey, which I found really easy to create and use. I learned about how I need to phrase some of my questions to ensure a common understanding. I think I can improve on my survey for next time in order to gain the most out of it by not having so many choices and having less open-ended questions. The trouble here was how few responses I had. If I use this in my inquiry I will think about sending out reminders or providing some token of appreciation. I want people to feel motivated to complete my survey and for them to feel important.

Advantages:
- Easy to use and share with many people via links to social networking sites
- Reaches a large amount of people in a short space of time
- Inclusion of a larger geographic area
- Free to use
Disadvantages:
- Requires a lot of time to set up the right questions
- You can get a low response rate or inaccurate responses
- Sometimes restricts the freedom to explain or expand the response
- No one to correct the misunderstanding of a question or response format
- Hard to know if they responded independently or with help from others
- Using the Internet might exclude people who are not familiar with this technology

Focus Group

For my pilot focus group I decided to get together a small group of colleagues from the theatre that were interested in taking part. This included 2 dancers, 1 singer, 2 technical guys and the technical director. It went well although some people spoke more than others. Occasionally we would drift off my subject and I had to make sure we got back on track.

Advantages:
- I was able to ask the questions and keep the conversation on track
- People were able to talk and discuss the topics with one another
- We were able to talk about subject related topics even if they were not in my list of questions
- I could observe people’s behavior to the questions i.e. facial expressions, body language
- I was able to ask people that would be great candidates for a focus group and relevant to my subject
Disadvantages:
- Certain people spoke more than others and it was hard to get some people’s opinions at times
- We couldn’t talk about management in the company we work for as I held it at the theatre so if they wanted to say anything negative they couldn’t and because one of the managers was present which could have influenced the outcome
- The results are not like quantitative study findings, just small groups opinions

Observation

For my pilot observation I decided to watch the recent audition we held for our upcoming Broadway shows. As I was needed to take the dance part of the audition I arrived early to observe the singing auditions. I was mainly focusing on our Director and the way in which he conducted the audition. It was a lengthy process with over 50 people showing up and each singing two contracting songs. An interesting thing I observed however was that as resumes were being handed to the Director as the candidates were going up onstage he would put it straight on the floor and not even look at it. He noted some numbers down on a piece of paper and that was how he shortlisted who he liked.

Advantages:
- I could directly observe the behavior of the Director holding the audition and the way he was choosing performers
- You can look at behavior of those being watched and tally how many times a certain behaviour happens
Disadvantages
- Time consuming. The singing audition was over 2 hours
- It can change the way people may behave if they know they are being observe
- People might act in a certain way to try and conform to what the researcher wants to see
- Different observers might draw different conclusions from watching the same thing
- Researchers perception of what is happening might be bias to the end result

 In conclusion, I feel that all the above tools each have a useful part to play in my inquiry. I will need to choose which methods will be suitable for the different subjects I am looking into. For example to find out more about setting up a business and managing a new company it might be beneficial to carry out some more one-to-one interviews with some of the directors of the company whereas finding out more about career transition in dancers carrying out another survey might be of use for a vast range of results.

6a Pilot Observation

Pilot Observation Results

For my pilot observation I decided to watch a recent audition we held at the theatre for singers and dancers for our upcoming Broadway series shows. Here I was acting as an insider-researcher. For this I sat at the back of the theatre and observed and took notes on the process.

Some of the observations I made are below:
- Candidates entered and waited in the lobby. About 50 candidates showed up
- The Director hired a pianist to play for the singing part of the audition
- Candidates were handed a form by some of the helpers to complete and attach their photo and resume to
- Each person was measured by wardrobe department for costuming before waiting to sing
- Each person sung two contrasting songs with the piano accompaniment and showed off any musical skills they had
- The director was handed the resume of each person before they went up, which he looked and the name and put on the floor! He knew what he was looking for and cared about talent and casting for the role, not previous experience
- Candidates could sit and watch after singing. The auditorium was open for people to view!
- I noticed the director was asking how many were left after about 1 1/2. It was a lot to sit through which made me realise how much you have to grab their attention and stand out.
- Candidates that did something different (funny, played something, wore something bright) stood out!
- The director asked for them to stand near the piano (stage left). Some came up and didn't. You have to show you can take direction and this was not good on their behalf.
- After singing it was the dancing call. I took this in groups of 20. I taught them a difficult routine very quickly and then they performed in smaller groups of 8.
- There were no cuts made and everyone was seen

Although I have attended many auditions myself, it was very interesting to be on the other side of it for once. I observed just how important it is to stand out. It is a long procces and directors get bored. They want to see something fresh and with so many people it is important to get noticed and be remembered. I spoke with the director at the end and we went through the pile of resumes. Only a few stood out to us some of which we are recalling. A couple of people got automatically cast for roles and many didn't make the cut. From this pilot observation I learned the process of auditioning from the companies point of view and what they look for. Next time I think video recording such an event would be useful to analyse as you cannot always write everything you see down.