Introduction to Reflective Writing

This is my first time I’ve been exposed to creative writing, somebody called it reflective writing. So if I start to lose my understanding of what reflective writing is, I will refer to a format that I called 5 W 1 H. See diagram below:

              

            I was exposed into writing when I was in my undergraduates program that I had to submit a dissertation as well as a practical work for final project. Through that process I began to fall in love with writing, of course in Malay language because English is not my first medium of communication both in writing and speaking. In my opinion, writing is like a journey with pen and paper, and mind is the rudder of the route. In addition, I feel excited when ideas come through my head and I can’t wait to express it into the paper. I think writing is easier for me than speaking, but I am not saying that my writing is perfect. Regarding that situation, my teacher always said that I didn’t have a good voice that I talked very fast: mumbling. Of course, in life everybody has weaknesses. Therefore I will make it as tool to work harder and be the best as Mikhail Baryshnikov said, ‘I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself’.

For me, writing an experience is like recording every moment. It becomes memory when it is past. Although a recording may be clearer than a sentence, sometimes I think words are more powerful than video. It can engage straight with the readers mind. I never thought to write every single moment in my dance life before whereas it’s very useful to keep it as individual journal.

2.0 Life is a Dancer, and I am the Dance- Follow the Flow

For me, dance is a LIFE that contains STORY, and give me CHALLENGES through the pathway to be CREATIVE then I have to make DECISIONS. It’s an incredible JOURNEY….

So, I have chosen several quotes that I find to be inspirational. Every quote is representative of each of the above words and also connected to my real life as a dancer. There are:

•'Life is a dancer, and you are the dance'. (Eckhart Tolle)

          • 'You write your life story by choices you make. You never know it they have been mistake. Those  moments of decision are so difficult'. (Hellen Mirren)

              •The biggest challenge after success is shutting up about it'. (Criss Jami)

              •'The key of life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he's dead'. (Bette Davis)

              •There are no negatives in life, only challenges to overcome that wil make you sttronger'. (Eric Bates)

             •'Creativity is intelligence having fun'. (Albert Einstein)

             •Imagination is more important than knowledge'. (Albert Einstein)

             •Not to decide is to decide'. (Harvey Cox)

           •'Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it'. (Greg     Anderson)

 Follow the flow, that’s the way of my life. There are good and bad things in it, depending how it is interpretated. Anyway, I am the only one in my family that has pursued a career in dance. It started when I fall in love with breakdancing in the year of 2000. I watched over and over breakdance video clips on the internet to learn the movement. There were no dance classes in my hometown, instead breakdance came from the street and we practiced it as we hung out after school or during weekends. Too Phat was one of most famous Hip Hop group in Malaysia at that time. They brought Hip Hop song and breakdance phenomena onto another level in my country. At that time, I didn’t know what I might do for my future and what career might support my life. I just enjoyed every moment in my life but I had a dream to become a Hip Hop dancer and involved in commercial world as well as a backup dancer. But how to do it?

                        My life seemed to fit into the right track when I heard about National Academy of Dance and which is now called National Academy of Arts, Culture, and Heritage (ASWARA). Honestly, I had no idea what is this institution offered for their dance program.  I just enrolled without reading the program’s syllabus. But, as I said I was just following the flow. At the beginning I was a little bit lost. I felt I was not a really naturally good dancer because I had no proper training as my foundation, I just danced with my friends in the street. As times went on, my body started to use to different forms, styles and genre of dances. However, it really took a long time to attract my lecturers’ attention. I wanted to dance in their choreography but unfortunately, I had more stunning and talented classmates who more skilled than I.

When I was at college, I exposed to many different approaches and dance training both practical and theoretical. In the Dance Faculty’s syllabus, we learned Malay, Chinese folk and classic dance, together with specific classical Indian Bharatanatyam. For western technique besides ballet, I had modern dance teachers that taught Graham, Cunningham, and Lester Horton technique. Besides that, the Faculty of Dance also invited some guest teachers and Professional Dance Companies to give dance workshops (see Appendix 2): Wendy Rogers (California), Riki Von Falken (Germany), Yukio Waguri (Japan), THE Dance Company (Singapore), Battery Dance Company (U.S.A). In terms of choreography, I learned Improvisation, Composition, and Choreography in the diploma, and continue to higher level of exploration in undergraduates level. I finished both my diploma together with undergraduates after a period of 6 years. Actually, I performed a lot both in traditional and contemporary dance choreographies, but I rarely got an opportunity to choreograph myself. I feel choreograph needs time and I do not like rush, until now I just create works if I have choreography exams.

The most unforgettable and priceless experiences that I ever had was when I got a short scholarship (2 weeks) from Kennedy Arts Fellowship to do free workshops. During this time, I watched performances such as musicals, contemporary dance, together with classical music, and visited legendary contemporary dance companies both in New York and Philadelphia: Philadanco, Alvin Ailey Dance Company, Merce Cunningham Dance Company, Martha Graham Contemporary Dance Company, and so on. That opportunity opened my eyes to the real professional and international dance world. In 2011, when I had completed my undergraduate studies, the Faculty of Dance offered me a 2 year contract as lecturer. I was also invited to be a dancer in ASWARA Dance Company.When I accepted both positions I had 2 commitments to fulfill. Actually, I got the offer because the person that been offered have rejected it. Now I needed to make a big decision again. So I followed the flow again and accepted the challenge. In those 2 years, I really learned a lot; performing, doing publicity works, managing production, office/administrative works. It gave me a good insight into how all the officers in the academy run the faculty every semester.

I cannot forget several incidents that changed my whole life. In the first year of my diploma program, one hip hop choreographer came to my school and choose me to tour with him. I am so happy because I really love Hip Hop and I was excited to start rehearsing. When I arrived in the studio, I saw everyone warming up themselves. I was the youngest and least experienced dancer in there. Then, one of the dancer came to me and said,’ Did Joseph tell you? Actually you are still new and I think we need to replace your place’. I was really upset and went back to my hostel. It is very painful and I think that was my very first frustration in dance. One year later, I got an offer to dance for a choreographer from Hong Kong in full-length work. I was very scared. Honestly, the choreographer chose me because all other male dancers in my school were too busy at that time. He did not have other choices and took a risk to let me dance in his choreography. I remembered at that time in 2006, it was like a nightmare. The choreographer shouted at me, other dancers did not help me very much either. My brain was so incredibly slow at picking up an easy sequence. I felt so embarrassed and upset, but I overcome the situation bravely. One day, I walked with Yunus Ismail who was my senior at that time but who now I dances and works in same office as me. I said to him, ‘I want to dance and be good as you, brother.’ And he replies, ‘No, I believe and you need to dance better than me’. And then we just continue our walk to train station.

Other incident happened when I went to watch Jamu, a lecturer choreography performance. Two of my classmates were dancing for the lecturer, I loved the lecturer’s movements and pedagogical approach. He finished his undergraduates from Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and his works is influences by Brian Adams’ (his mentor and teacher) choreographic style together with Cunningham technique. When he choreographs, he tends to mix modern dance technique with Bharatanatyam and Khathak. The work was incredible, the movements were exciting, they jump and roll all over the space in unison, canon, and sometimes stop, doing solo and group again. I felt like I wanted to jump and dance with them when I sat in the audience. On my way to go back home, I said to myself, ‘I will work harder to improve myself, I want to dance with them, I want to dance for Umesh Shetty, my lecturer’. Then, I started to realize that my passion in dance was for contemporary. I could dance traditional dances but I enjoyed contemporary or western modern dance even more. I was absorbed studying modern dance and traditional dances techniques in these few years. Then suddenly I asked myself, ‘Where is my Hip Hop?’. One another big decision came, and now I further my study in Ma Contemporary Dance at University of Limerick. I said to myself again, ‘Hmmm… I might find it somewhere, whenever, if it’s really come to me’. I bring with me a question of integration with Hip Hop and contemporary dance to my new beginning. Now follow the flow again.

Performer Perform in Performance

What made the dancer/actor world class performer? Does it enough if the performer just have high ability in his or her ballet/modern dance technique? If it was enough then it means we just watching a robot dancing on the stage. What is the different between artist and dancing machine? Does it enough the performer clarified as world class performer when they worked with international companies and stages. For me, a good performer must have soul while they are performing. Nevertheless, it was very hard to clarify what 'soul' is. Some performers had this talent inside them and some of them need to practice to get that. How to practice something that we cannot see? First we need to understand, then accept, and next work towards it.  To make it easy to understand the word 'intensity' is the next level performer have to achieve. Some people call it focus or full attention to something. We had been practiced this focus thing but most of the time we were busy with movements or the physical that made we forgot the inner power. We could learn this element during improvisation classes in a formal dance program when we learn how to focus, workout the mind, break habits in performance and many more. Then, this ability will improve from time to time along with our experiences. Sometimes, we also had experience when the teachers said feel the dance, engage the character, express it, project the energy while practicing dance routine or choreography. However, we could be a better performer if we put more attention and had proper exercise to improve it. When I finished my B.A and worked professionally with ASWARA Dance Company approximately about 2 years,  I am asking myself what is the purpose of pursuing my study besides just to get the certificate?  I assumed I had pushed my physical ability perhaps close to the satisfied level (my opinion) and is the M.A study could improve myself as a dancer? Eventually, the M.A course open my mind and it does not change my body really, but it leads the direction to my inner intensity. I am not sure if my intensity is improve but the main content what I had learned from the M.A was not about physical technique anymore, but how to generate the body by the inner intensity. Interesting enough, my lecturer said it would be easier to understand or train this intensity if you had strong basic/technique. Yet, I watched performers who had variety background like film, theatre, music, visual arts and not just came from dance field somehow had really outstanding performance. So, does it because of confidence factor? I do not know.

 It was really interesting when I observed the theatre practitioner and dancers. From my experience, most of dancer will feel comfortable when they had movement on stage. Some dancers  feel vulnerable when they are using voice, expression or other skills beside dancing. However, it depends to the individual ability and types of dance. For example, Indian Classical dancer will be more comfortable to use expression because it was one of main elements in that particular type of dance. Dancer would also  feel more comfortable when there are other dancers with them on stage. But, how if the dancer perform alone on the stage using texts, standing still, using facial expression instead of body movement? In my opinion, actor and actress trained their skills more from the 'soul' because they play a character meanwhile dancer are busy to workout their body most of the time. Therefore, it would be great if these two type of performers exchange their skills and produce remarkable outcome.  Todays, dance world developed so much. People trying so many things to produce more and more interesting variation of works. Many artist turn their attention to other things besides the body ability. The training that they had is to help them in the dance world but there are so much possibilities need to be consider, unless if the dancer decide to dance in professional dance company until they retire. Then, when the time come what should they do when the company does not need them anymore. What happen to the wonderful high ability physical  performer if they do not have other skills especially in Malaysia? That is the reason why some performer chose to become independent artist so that they could sell their product by their own not  just depends to the companies and organisations. Be real. As Mikhail Baryshnikov said, "I do not try to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself". What I get from this quote is every performer had their own interesting talent and speciality. If we stuck in the shadow of other people, we will not see our own potential. If we blur how to push ourself to the maximum level. We tend to fail at certain things, we might not meant for it. That is ok, just keep searching what is our trigger in dance. Are we meant to create choreography, teacher, dance critic, or organiser. Last but not least, during the primitive time human dancing to express themselves, to engage with the community, to enjoy, to be happy. They do not care about the physical technique,  that is the reason why the joy become the first priority. That is the very first reason why human dancing. We workout the technique but do not forget the reason why we involve in dance world, that I believed most of us decided to dance because we love dancing. Do not let the stress of achieving perfection make us forget the excitement of dancing. When the people enjoy, the body and soul will become unit and create spectacle performance, because the performer performed in the performance.