Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
The story of the self-search - short and incomplete version. Chapter without number: Intervision and Communication
Dear classmates, Dear Dorian,
I am very happy to have, maybe for the first time, the opportunity to speak openly about myself and since the subject is so personal, I have decided to put aside all kinds of formalities and talk to you in the most intimate, and personally, my favourite way: by writing you a letter.
It is very difficult to start with a beginning, because it’s hard to remember one. For me, the beginning took place years ago, when my father thought I was too loud for him and decided to take me to some theatre courses, so that I drive other people crazy, the beginning was maybe with every meeting that I had with acting teachers, which changed me in a good and sometimes in a bad way. Maybe it all began when I gave a test for the Master or the first day at school. You would wonder now: a beginning of what? Well, the answer is simple, a beginning for self discovery. You see, many of you here, or maybe all of you, have already an established career and you are searching through this Master a change, a step further, a way of becoming a better professional. I am at the beginning of my professional road, literally at the beginning. I jumped from the Bachelor into the Master taking in this way a normal path of my career, opening a new door, the one for teaching arts, which lately was defined by my ambition to organize and conduct workshops. But little did I know that this Master was going to do more than deliver the necessary tools to full-fill my goals.
My first surprise came along with the Belbin test. I was very surprised to see that the majority of you considered me to be a planter. The result test indicated actually a tight score between planter and researcher. Why was I so shocked? Well, a researcher is stable, relaxed and social, picking ideas in order to work with them. On another hand, a planter is creative, a free thinker, but often has a hard time communicating with others. Well, I can see now why “having a hard time communicating with others” indicated me as a planter, but putting all jokes aside, your review, for which I thank you, gave me confidence and courage. If I used not to have trust in my ideas and accept the ideas of others, your review certainly made me say: „Why not?”, „Why shouldn’t I trust myself?” - Typical problems for 23 year old girls. Of course, the negative parts also came with the good „stuff”, so yes, I did have to admit that my mother was right: I tend to me dominant, over enthusiast, impatient and extra sensitive to critics. But I can tell you for sure that I am working on that. I do hope that I can become a more sociable planter and a more focused researcher.
The Kolb test indicated me how, over the years and the situations, I became very pragmatic, sometimes too pragmatic for my taste, and as a decider, with a more abstract style, it appears that I love to connect theory with practice, to try solutions and to draw independent conclusions, and although the result is influenced by situation, Kolb was again right.
And as a final touch, the Rose of Leary has put a mirror in front of me, showing me things that I liked but also details that I wish I could improve. For example, although I can be very persuasive when I want something and apparently taking the initiative, which I don’t exceed yet, I can complain, distrust and show a rebel attitude, which can break the dynamic of a group and also my personal creative flow. But again, I am working on it.
Applying everything that I learned of myself, I can become a better professional, a better leader, a better team worker and a better person. It is amazing how the confrontation between my impressions and your view gave me more insights on the groups dynamics, on my contribution on it, with qualities and faults, and this is the luggage of knowledge that I take with me from the course of Intervision and Communication, trying to make use of it as much as I can.
I don’t know how to make an end, it is not really my favourite part, because I like to talk so much, but as an end of a new beginning, I will tell you a story: on 7 September 2009, I was sitting in Lange Viestraat, in front of the stairs, and I was telling myself: „This year will change your life” and it is constantly doing that, both on a professional level, but maybe more importantly, for me as a young actor, on a personal dimension, building for me the confidence, trust, order and self discipline that any artist needs to succeed – the strengths and weaknesses lie in myself.
Regards,
Dana
I am very happy to have, maybe for the first time, the opportunity to speak openly about myself and since the subject is so personal, I have decided to put aside all kinds of formalities and talk to you in the most intimate, and personally, my favourite way: by writing you a letter.
It is very difficult to start with a beginning, because it’s hard to remember one. For me, the beginning took place years ago, when my father thought I was too loud for him and decided to take me to some theatre courses, so that I drive other people crazy, the beginning was maybe with every meeting that I had with acting teachers, which changed me in a good and sometimes in a bad way. Maybe it all began when I gave a test for the Master or the first day at school. You would wonder now: a beginning of what? Well, the answer is simple, a beginning for self discovery. You see, many of you here, or maybe all of you, have already an established career and you are searching through this Master a change, a step further, a way of becoming a better professional. I am at the beginning of my professional road, literally at the beginning. I jumped from the Bachelor into the Master taking in this way a normal path of my career, opening a new door, the one for teaching arts, which lately was defined by my ambition to organize and conduct workshops. But little did I know that this Master was going to do more than deliver the necessary tools to full-fill my goals.
My first surprise came along with the Belbin test. I was very surprised to see that the majority of you considered me to be a planter. The result test indicated actually a tight score between planter and researcher. Why was I so shocked? Well, a researcher is stable, relaxed and social, picking ideas in order to work with them. On another hand, a planter is creative, a free thinker, but often has a hard time communicating with others. Well, I can see now why “having a hard time communicating with others” indicated me as a planter, but putting all jokes aside, your review, for which I thank you, gave me confidence and courage. If I used not to have trust in my ideas and accept the ideas of others, your review certainly made me say: „Why not?”, „Why shouldn’t I trust myself?” - Typical problems for 23 year old girls. Of course, the negative parts also came with the good „stuff”, so yes, I did have to admit that my mother was right: I tend to me dominant, over enthusiast, impatient and extra sensitive to critics. But I can tell you for sure that I am working on that. I do hope that I can become a more sociable planter and a more focused researcher.
The Kolb test indicated me how, over the years and the situations, I became very pragmatic, sometimes too pragmatic for my taste, and as a decider, with a more abstract style, it appears that I love to connect theory with practice, to try solutions and to draw independent conclusions, and although the result is influenced by situation, Kolb was again right.
And as a final touch, the Rose of Leary has put a mirror in front of me, showing me things that I liked but also details that I wish I could improve. For example, although I can be very persuasive when I want something and apparently taking the initiative, which I don’t exceed yet, I can complain, distrust and show a rebel attitude, which can break the dynamic of a group and also my personal creative flow. But again, I am working on it.
Applying everything that I learned of myself, I can become a better professional, a better leader, a better team worker and a better person. It is amazing how the confrontation between my impressions and your view gave me more insights on the groups dynamics, on my contribution on it, with qualities and faults, and this is the luggage of knowledge that I take with me from the course of Intervision and Communication, trying to make use of it as much as I can.
I don’t know how to make an end, it is not really my favourite part, because I like to talk so much, but as an end of a new beginning, I will tell you a story: on 7 September 2009, I was sitting in Lange Viestraat, in front of the stairs, and I was telling myself: „This year will change your life” and it is constantly doing that, both on a professional level, but maybe more importantly, for me as a young actor, on a personal dimension, building for me the confidence, trust, order and self discipline that any artist needs to succeed – the strengths and weaknesses lie in myself.
Regards,
Dana
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Let's undress an artist
So, here is the thing, I have to undress an artist... Who's gonna be? Well, we leave the best for the end. The handicap of the language gives me the advantage of having time to see behind the eyes of the people, hoping that I know how to watch behind their eyes. I am wondering so, looking at everybody, how should I undress an artist? Can't we call it "undressing", the process of analyzing the phases of one's creativity? Because, after all, can you get more intimate than this? What are the phases of creativity? You take the perfume of his/hers lips, the freshness of a sunny morning, the tenderness of your mother's eyes, the death of your dear ones, you add a key, a word, some life, a touch of God, more feelings, you squize them till you get the best, you drink it till the end, you hate it, so you love it even more, you throw yourself and there you are, back at the beggining. It is never over. Putting things in the formal terms, everything has a name: sensation, preparation, frustration, illumination, verification etc.
So, let's undress an artist, shall we? ;)
So, let's undress an artist, shall we? ;)
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
"Kick of week" or, as the Dutch would say it, Leuk!
7 september 2009
I woke up in the morning with the perfume of a new day... Do you remember your first day in school when you woke up in the morning, getting all dressed up, drinking a hot chocolate, holding your mom's hand and heading to school? My mom was more nervous than me, as I was taking a new step in my life. Well, the day of 7 september began with the same perfume of old times, a taste I haven't tried in a while and there it was, anouncing what it was to come. Because, as I would find out later on, the same feeling of those sweet days repeated itself on the first day of the Kick Off Week.
As a child, you have the excuse and the relief of not understanding what is going on with you. As an adult, you experience every little thing that makes you more aware that indeed, there is no excuse for you, you will remember everything that is going on and you will live it at the maximum.
So, returning to the perfume of old sweet times, I was having the same image in front of me, only this time my mom was replaced by my boyfriend, who expressed that day a tender parently concern for me, which almost made me ask him: "where is the hot chocolate?" (that is, at least to complete the picture). Well, it wasn't supossed to be hot chocolate, because the beverage of childhood was replaced with more down to earth drinks: coffee or tea. The sweetest habbit of all, the coffee and tea from the classroom relaxed me well enough, although I must say I didn't drink neither one, neither the other. I was saying earlier that we are now fully aware of what is going on around us, and on that day I couldn't be more aware than ever: Dutch, and, as my ears were getting bigger and bigger, the word was twisting my brains: Dutch. Of course I was fully aware that the courses will be in Dutch, but it's still a shock to face the reality, no?
A cold shower, as Mr. Otto Berg expressed it perfectly, multiple cold showers, as my friends would joke around, a fascinating new step in my life, as I would put it.
The Kick of Week started with the meeting of new people, different people, and, at least for me, this adds more spices to the actual challenge of doing this study. I am glad to see that with every course I discover the large numbers of possibilities that the Master offers. This shows that I am in the right place.
I enjoyed so much all the games designed to get to know eachother, especially since, with my brilliant Dutch, I need to hear more than once all the information that was going around at every course, to finally get the idea in the end (btw, special thanks to all the people that helped me, playing the translator so that I can keep the track of the courses and also to the ones that did the common tasks with me in English). I especially found very interesting the exercise where we were supposed to guess different things about the people around us. I wished I could express the products of my imagination in this one, but I hope to recuperate very soon.
It felt like we had a taste of everything that we can expect from the next period of time, and for me the taste was Leuk. I have to appreciate the senegalize play, which raised in my mind a lot of questions like: was the dutch actress really needed in the play? Because I just have the feeling that popular theater has its own charm, the charm that comes from the naive and basic interpretation of people, a charm that doesn't lack at all sensitivity and depth of things. Maybe an extra of dancing and music would have compensated for the language that we didn't understand (in my case two ;)), but still, the simplicity of such a show gave me a feeling of peace.
Finishing, my cold shower was actually more of a summer rain: you get a bit cold, a bit wet, you wish you had some warm clothes on you, but you still want to go for it, since the summer rain is just simply delicious.
I woke up in the morning with the perfume of a new day... Do you remember your first day in school when you woke up in the morning, getting all dressed up, drinking a hot chocolate, holding your mom's hand and heading to school? My mom was more nervous than me, as I was taking a new step in my life. Well, the day of 7 september began with the same perfume of old times, a taste I haven't tried in a while and there it was, anouncing what it was to come. Because, as I would find out later on, the same feeling of those sweet days repeated itself on the first day of the Kick Off Week.
As a child, you have the excuse and the relief of not understanding what is going on with you. As an adult, you experience every little thing that makes you more aware that indeed, there is no excuse for you, you will remember everything that is going on and you will live it at the maximum.
So, returning to the perfume of old sweet times, I was having the same image in front of me, only this time my mom was replaced by my boyfriend, who expressed that day a tender parently concern for me, which almost made me ask him: "where is the hot chocolate?" (that is, at least to complete the picture). Well, it wasn't supossed to be hot chocolate, because the beverage of childhood was replaced with more down to earth drinks: coffee or tea. The sweetest habbit of all, the coffee and tea from the classroom relaxed me well enough, although I must say I didn't drink neither one, neither the other. I was saying earlier that we are now fully aware of what is going on around us, and on that day I couldn't be more aware than ever: Dutch, and, as my ears were getting bigger and bigger, the word was twisting my brains: Dutch. Of course I was fully aware that the courses will be in Dutch, but it's still a shock to face the reality, no?
A cold shower, as Mr. Otto Berg expressed it perfectly, multiple cold showers, as my friends would joke around, a fascinating new step in my life, as I would put it.
The Kick of Week started with the meeting of new people, different people, and, at least for me, this adds more spices to the actual challenge of doing this study. I am glad to see that with every course I discover the large numbers of possibilities that the Master offers. This shows that I am in the right place.
I enjoyed so much all the games designed to get to know eachother, especially since, with my brilliant Dutch, I need to hear more than once all the information that was going around at every course, to finally get the idea in the end (btw, special thanks to all the people that helped me, playing the translator so that I can keep the track of the courses and also to the ones that did the common tasks with me in English). I especially found very interesting the exercise where we were supposed to guess different things about the people around us. I wished I could express the products of my imagination in this one, but I hope to recuperate very soon.
It felt like we had a taste of everything that we can expect from the next period of time, and for me the taste was Leuk. I have to appreciate the senegalize play, which raised in my mind a lot of questions like: was the dutch actress really needed in the play? Because I just have the feeling that popular theater has its own charm, the charm that comes from the naive and basic interpretation of people, a charm that doesn't lack at all sensitivity and depth of things. Maybe an extra of dancing and music would have compensated for the language that we didn't understand (in my case two ;)), but still, the simplicity of such a show gave me a feeling of peace.
Finishing, my cold shower was actually more of a summer rain: you get a bit cold, a bit wet, you wish you had some warm clothes on you, but you still want to go for it, since the summer rain is just simply delicious.
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