Sunday 6 March 2016

Akram Khan (Interview at Dancetheater.gr) Interview on his choreographic process, collaboration and factors that affect his artistic decisions





Now that I am planning my interviews with choreographers, I am reading and watching as many interviews as possible with choreographers on their artistic process.  Although these questions and themes are not necessarily the same as my planned interview I still found this insightful in how a question can spontaneously lead into the next, creating an open atmosphere.



Akram Khan is a hugely influential choreographer, performer and director.  I found his insight into collaboration particularly interesting.  Can we learn from the collaboration?  Can we teach each other something?  Perhaps if we can see what will happen, it may not be the most interesting...



The section on the current financial climate and how it has affected new choreographers was thought provoking.   Yes, it may be harder now than before to gain funding, but that shouldn't be a deterrent.  People will always create art.  The founders of contact improvisation had barely any money behind them but still managed to help shape contemporary choreography and training today.



Is anyone else conducting interviews for their inquiry?   Any helpful sample interviews or research is welcome ;)


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3 comments:

  1. Unknown7 March 2016 at 03:15

    Some of your questions - Can we learn from the collaboration? Can we teach each other something?

    Personally I think YES YES YES! At the school I teach we have just created a 2 hour full dance production of 'The lion, the witch & the wardrobe'. We created this with 3 teachers who constantly bounced off one another and sometimes changed each others vision by proposing a new step or a change of music etc. I love creating with others so my style doesn't go stale.

    I hope this helps x

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  2. Unknown8 March 2016 at 01:51

    Hi Catherine,

    I have been looking at a lot of literature recently and much of it, particularly in relation to Drama, has stated that collaboration is key in engaging students in learning and creating meaningful learning experiences. It is really interesting to see this similarities across inquiry topics.

    In terms of inquiry Interviews I found the Research books on the BAPP Arts reading list really useful to remind me of the ethics involved with conducting interviews. I found 'Bell, J. (2014) Doing your Research Project: a guide for first-time researchers 6th Edition England: Open University Press' really useful for this.

    I hope this helps

    Jess

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  3. Unknown30 March 2016 at 23:40

    Hi Catherine,

    I think this interview is a great starting point, I like how Akram Khan is very free to respond and share all his experiences. Obviously, when you interview it will depend on the participant how comfortable they are speaking so freely. I am conducting some of my interviews this week and expect to have to 'prompt' and guide some interviewees more than others. So a general set of questions (which I've posted samples of on my blog) together with a few prompts that you can use if the conversation stagnates, are a good approach.

    When composing the questions I was given the advice to balance between broad and narrow in your questions.
    In addition to the resource Jess has mentioned above, 'The Great Research Guide' by Martin Denscombe is also a very useful resource.

    I hope I could be helpful.
    Best,
    Lara

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