Skip to main content

The art of feedback

Feedback: the transmission of evaluative or corrective information about an action, event, or process to the original or controlling source (Merriam Webster, 2023).

I am a feedback-forward person. I use dialogue and conversation to dissect feedback and to understand its fullest potential from the source. Within my various jobs feedback is something that I am continuously receiving. Although I give feedback to teachers and students daily, I am also receiving it from those in superior positions (my boss', choreographers, and directors) and those I work with (students, colleagues, reviewers, and audiences). Adding school back into my life adds another layer of feedback and one I am still trying to navigate. 

The feedback I receive as a dancer is not a suggestion, it is based on implementation and immediate change. Within my teaching and leading roles feedback is more conversational and subjective but often is something that needs to be acted on with the changes proposed. I rarely receive feedback that is a suggestion only.  

Within my inquiry draft I received feedback as planned. I have been waiting to implement this feedback as to ensure I was 100% sure of the changes that needed to be made. Today Helen reminded me that the feedback is not necessarily for exact change and replication but rather to invoke a new thought or pose a new question about the inquiry. This is a mind shift that I am finding quite difficult. Although I am providing others with feedback in a way that is meant to be only suggestions, receiving it this way is proving difficult. 

Are we conditioned as dancers to implement change based on others' perceptions and to not question if those changes are needed or right? In my experience- yes. 

So my task, along with all of the other tasks, is to find the middle ground. To understand feedback is a suggestion but not just to know this in mind but to know it in heart, and to move into that place of suggestion. 

As I prepare for a show that premiers next Thursday, I am finding these two different ways of approaching feedback very frustrating and confusing. But, I trust the process, and the evolution, and will keep on working to find the blend of academia and practice. 

Broken Rhythms Show: Above Me
Pictured: Caleigh Hunter
Photographer: Dyana Sonik-Henderson

Bibliography:
Merriam Webster (2023). https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/feedback

Comments

  1. Thanks a lot for these thoughts Cael! I will keep this in mind too..

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The beginning of the final chapter

I forgot about the blog. So here I am. The beginning of this module was all the things- exciting, playful, feared, confusing, settling, peaceful, stressful, overwhelming, and ordinary. The first few weeks were me just settling back into routine. Working as dancer and instructor, for me, means that my life runs in these little blips. Sept-Dec is choreography, resetting in studios, and signing new performance contracts. So adding in the inquiry has been a juggling act.  I began research last week and I have LOVED it. I have really loved the human element of qualitative research. My inquiry is centered around language, and so I have observed classes/rehearsals and then interviewed the leader of the room and the dancers of the room. I am interested in looking at this collection of data in three ways: 1. Leader to Leader. In the various spaces, are those who are leading the room all feelings, speaking, and understanding similar things?  2. Student/Dancer to Student/Dancer. Within t...

Knowledge, Learning, Information

Knowledge: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject . Learning: the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, study, or by being taught. Information: facts provided or learned about something or someone. Questions taken from Dr Helen Kindred's blog.  Where are you now in your MA journey?  At this exact moment I am in the roundabout. I feel as though there are several different routes I can go, each with a destination that is unknown, yet I can't quite decide which off-ramp to take. I have been circling a few common themes and ideas about the inquiry and now just need to let those sit and percolate before I decide which one I will dive into. I am feeling more confident in my academic writing and understanding of where to access the research, and have enjoyed almost all of the texts I have read thus far. I am still continually confused with the school website and the ...

The spider web version of my brain

 As I dive into the learning process literature, reflect and dissect my CV, and pop important dates into my calendar I have affirmed that the way in which I learn is how I teach and how I create. A variety of thoughts, patterns, ideas, make up my day to day life and how I present my ideas to the world. Here are some of my thoughts, and hopefully you can follow along ;)  I have never been a linear thinker or singular thought contemplator, rather I have always created in a way that follows my sporadic trains of thought, and has my busy mind occupied with many things all at once. I currently have...15 tabs open, two notebooks in front of me, am throwing the ball down the hall for my puppy, the music on, and my coffee is brewing. I can not do one thing at a time.  Looking back to being a young child I was always a dancer, but never focused on one style. I always did a blend of ballet, jazz, tap, contemporary, hip hop, singing, musical theatre, and exam classes. It kept my cur...