A Day Off

Yesterday was a much needed day off!

I live and work in the same building so sometimes it's hard to get away and really escape to a different environment. I used my day to really relax. I gave myself a lie in, got up and went for a walk around 11 and I finally got back into my room at half past 5. It's safe to say I got out of the hotel and made the most of my day. 

I know for me personally I need those days off, allowing myself to forget about work, the day to day jobs and staying away from anything that you have to sit and concentrate for. 

It's been a lovely day, great company and good food. Excellent!

I often forget how lucky I am to perform everyday doing something that I love and living in a beautiful place like this definitely makes my days off that bit better.

BRING ON SUMMER!

Task 1d 2d Images

This for me is one of the easier tasks, in this day and age there are so many different ways of getting yourself seen and known for something that you want people to remember you by. Web 2.0 is a constant reminder of this. Facebook, Instagram, Flickr are commonly and widely used by people all over the world, they are able to watch, comment and get in contact with you personally on your posts.  This has a positive and negative impact on your life and career.

This task has really made me think about how I present myself and I have asked myself a few questions

Do I want Professional or Personal?

Is it important for me to keep my personal life separate from my work?

Should I have separate accounts on social media so that I am able to keep my personal life private and my work space professional?

How do I want to present yourself?

How do I approach negativity professionally?

Being professional is very important to me, I feel like it has been drilled into me since I was a child and it can often be very hard when others don't agree or don't want to share the same approach to work as me. When googling the word professional both adjectives below apply to me personally. First being that I belong to the Performing Arts profession and second that performing is my one main paid occupation.

To approach this task I am unsure on whether to separate personal from professional. When I started reading and working on this task I would have said to make sure there is a clear divide but having looked closer at the topic, is it more important to be yourself? What are potential employers looking for? Obviously they want someone who looks and works professionally, but also a real person, someone who can work in a team. So this got me thinking that having everything under one roof shows and presents the real me.

Throughout my career so far I have had my headshots and body shots taken every other year and I have photos from productions that I have taken part in. I make sure that all of these are visible on my Instagram and Facebook as you never know who will see them and could be potential new employers. Below are photos from Photographer Helen Overmire and some production shots during It's A Swing Thing at Warner Leisure Hotels.

I try to keep everything unto date on my Instagram feel free to have a look

@dominiqueydavies

Professional Dancer

Task 1c Audio Visual

This task is designed to develop a skill in technology and to help me look at and realise my real thoughts on the programme.

I have been struggling on how to approach this task as it is not an easy thing for me to sit and film myself talking, it has definitely helped looking at other peoples blogs from the course on how they have chosen to approach this.

So for now. . . 

Since the start of February when I started this course I have moved to The Isle of Wight for work, had 2 weeks of long day rehearsals teaching the new team members our 4 shows, our hotel opened and we continued rehearsals (this was the start of the even longer days of rehearsing, daytime activities and evening shows), we are now finally starting to find some normality where we are not doing such long days which helps when it comes to finally sitting down and getting to attack this BAPP Course. 

This photo is what my bed constantly looks like to remind myself that I have work to do

It's been very hard so far juggling work and trying to find time to dedicate to the course. Every time I think I'm doing well and getting back on track something else happens at work and I have to give more time to that. So I'm feeling extremely unorganised and that is so unlike me, as I am the type of girl who lives for organising her filofax to ensure I never miss a thing!

My life currently revolves around making lists and writing all over my rota to make sure I keep on top of everything. 

With the course itself its ok, I am struggling but I think thats because I'm not giving myself long enough to get into the flow of things. Everything is very bitty and I have to keep coming back to it and picking up where I left off. So I need to come up with a way of making more time to allow myself to enjoy and learn from what I am doing. I wanted to do this course to expand my knowledge of the industry and give myself more options within my career as I get older and can no longer perform. So far it has opened my eyes and made me think about things that I already knew but never really got around to doing or understanding. I am looking forward to learning and growing throughout this course.

Task 1b Professional Communication Technologies

Professional Communication Technologies

The title of this task scared me. I immediately printed off and looked over reader 1, flicked through the pages and thought great I'm in trouble. I knew it would take me a while to understand and get through it but I had myself a free afternoon from work so I made myself sit down with a highlighter and I worked my way through it. It took time but I did it. Even after doing that I still wasn't 100% sure, so I read through it again taking out the parts I had highlighted and made a spider diagram trying to link the different parts and get a better understanding. I think I'm finally getting there.

What are Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?

Web 1.0 - A creator and a Reader, one way communication e.g. newspaper or television

Web 2.0 - Usually allows the users to interact with each other, make formal and informal connections and share e.g. social networking such as Facebook, twitter, blogs

Web 2.0 can then be broken down into 3 other categories

Architectures of Participation, Remixable Data and Transformation and Harnessing Collective Intelligence

Using Web 2.0

Before starting this course I had never thought or heard of the term Web 2.0 and now that I have and I've been reading up on it and aiming to understand it,  It's hard not to think about how much my life revolves around the subject. In this day and age this kind of technology is used constantly by people of all ages and for a variety of reasons. Myself personally it started out as just using social media for talking to friends, having a way to share photos and see what my friends were doing, then as a way to keep in touch as I started to travel and meet people all over the world. Once attending dance college it was a way of connecting, making contacts within the industry, learning about my potential employers and being able to follow their work. So for me personally there are many positives for using Web 2.0 but what about the negatives?

When researching the negative effects of social media many websites used the same main points: a false sense of connection, cyber bulling, decreased productivity and privacy.

The problem for many is that it is so easily accessible with smart phones constantly in hand, tablets, laptops, the amazing free wifi that we all long for as soon as we venture out. It is hard to distance yourself to let yourself get jobs done, work completed. Even now I've been at work this morning, I'm back in work later tonight, I've got my mac in front of me with 9 different pages open, phone by my side buzzing every few minutes, TV on in the background. It left me thinking is access to everything a negative? I came across this page with what I thought was a great title and this quote and I liked how simply it was put.

http://www.seochat.com/c/a/social/social-media-and-society-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly

 “It’s not about ‘don’t spend time on Facebook’, but just be aware of what it might be doing to you”, Professor Keith Wilcox, Columbia University. 

- See more at: http://www.insideman.co.za/7-negative-effects-of-social-media/#sthash.IKnl3D5K.dpuf

So maybe there is an in between, as long as you have an understanding of where you stand as an individual and you are happy, does it really matter?

Task 1a Professional Profile

This task is aimed to develop my online profile,

My name is Dominique Davies, I am a 24 year old Professional Dancer. Like most young girls I started dancing from the age of 3, I trained in my hometown of Stafford studying Ballet, Tap and Modern at my local dance school under the NATD syllabus.
At the age of 18 I moved to Essex to attend Performers College where I studied all styles of dance, singing, acting and musical theatre. My 3 years at college helped me attain a Trinity College Diploma and I also managed to gain my ISTD DDI teaching qualifications in Ballet, Tap and Modern.
Since leaving college I have attended many auditions and worked for choreographers such as Emma Rogers and Brain Rogers and I have had the pleasure to be part of Paul Hammond Feel The Magic, Plan B Productions and most recently Warner Leisure Hotels, who I currently work for based on The Isle of Wight.
I am now looking to further my career and expand my knowledge about the industry and I believe that this BAPP course will help me do that.

I believe that a wide and diverse Curriculum Vitae can be very important to advancing your career, it's very easy to write down everything you have done and achieved but it's not so easy to make yourself stand out and make that piece of paper become a person. The majority of the time you would first attract an employer through your CV and only then would they meet you for an interview, so I strongly believe it is important to make a good first impression. To do this I have worked on my style of writing, presentation skills and creating unique touches that make you stand out from others on the same career path to give me the advantage with my first steps on the employment ladder.

I first developed my CV in high school, as a student I was encouraged to write my CV to give myself the best start at attaining a job. At 16 I got my first job, over the years my CV started to grow and develop it's self but it was up to me to ensure I kept my CV up to date for potential work. It was only when I started auditioning for amateur dramatic work and applying for dance colleges that I had to develop a CV for my performing work. At dance college we were given templates on how to write a CV and the information that needed to be on it, therefore being able to present yourself in the best way possible and providing all details to increase the chance of being offered a job, throughout my time at college I was given many opportunities that would later help to expand my career and my Performing CV.

I now have 2 CV's both for different types of work, it is then easier to present yourself appropriately for your future employer. However some of my work crosses over onto both CV's. Both are shown below.

CV

Performing CV