I chose to make my education work for me. I wanted theatre. I wanted dance. I wanted to improve my skills. And I want to always be able to work in theatre in some fashion. I also like to be good at things. I really get frustrated when I can't figure something out and do it well. So, how does IDS fit into this? I made my education work for me, I dictated what I was going to learn. I decided that business and marketing would benefit my dreams in theatre by giving me the business mind to back up the theatrical skills, and the ability to market myself or a theatre company. I set up my degree to provide me with a basis of skills to work anywhere in the theatre and do anything. And that's what it did. I certainly have my strong suits and my weaker areas but I understand the basic concepts of everything and am always ready and willing to learn something new to help myself improve. In my time at PSU I have learned valuable skills in carpentry and drafting, electrics and lighting, how to create sound cues and run Qlab. I learned how to sew and work with costumes. I have stage managed a few times and directed a 15 minute scene.
On top of that I learned the marketing principles and how to apply them to social media as internal marketing is the best form of marketing. I learned how to create a website and honed skills in iMovie and a few photo editing softwares. I've learned how to become a standardized patient, which is a great job for actors in-between jobs. Then of course I took many acting classes and dance classes to continue to expand my knowledge of acting techniques and styles of dance, which will help me do anything from performing myself to choreography and directing. And finally, I performed in and worked on quite a few shows in my time at PSU which gave me hands on applications for all of these skills. I have a full post with all the information about my contract here.
I never wanted a standard education, I wanted to learn what I wanted. And if I was going to spend all this money going to college, I was going to take everything it had to offer. And I did. Now the world can prepare for the storm that will be me.
For my Capstone/ Applied Project I wanted to do something meaningful and big. Originally I was just going to create a website for the theatre company I choreograph for a lot but there was one thing that's always bugged me that I wanted to focus on instead. And that something is the stigma around theatre jobs. Contrary to popular opinion, there are jobs in theatre. People often look at theatre as just acting and yes, acting jobs are hard to come by sometimes. There will be plenty more rejections than jobs. However, a lot of people don't realize the amount of jobs there are in theatre and how different and interesting they all are. So for my project I created a workshop that shows some of the various jobs in theatre so I could help break the stigma that there aren't jobs in theatre. You can read about the full process here. I brought in students from all the middle and high schools in Manchester NH for an open workshop with professionals from all over the state to show what they do and how they do what they do. The event was a success the turnout was great and even though there were definitely some bumps in the road I am very pleased with the outcome. The event taught me how apply the skills from my marketing classes as well as business and managing classes. Those skills were necessary to keep the event going as it was such a large scale event. I also had presenters dropping out at the last minute which was difficult for me however with my own collection of work I've done I was able to pull some stuff together to fill the tables that were suddenly unmanned. The full process was a complete application of everything I've learned over the past few years.
My research article started as a pretty wide topic because I have a habit of making more work for myself than necessary but I ended up focusing it down to Dance as a Therapeutic Expression for the Reduction of Anxiety. You can read it here. I broke it down into three sections: What is Anxiety? How Can Dance Be Used to Treat Anxiety? and How Dance Can be Used as a Creative Tool to Express Anxiety on the Path to Healing. I chose to do this because the arts are often the first area cut when a school is low on funding, but the arts, and dance especially, are a crucial part of many people's lives and is often used as a stress reliever and a reliever of anxiety.
I honed in on the release of anxiety and dance and looked into the clinical world to see how dance/ movement therapy is used clinically to help with anxiety, depression, and other mental disorders. Since I was looking through a clinical lens I did add a disclaimer that just dancing isn't a cure from a medical standpoint, but I also know personally I have used dance as a tool to express myself, my anxiety, and my emotions my whole life as well as just the thing I go to to get out of my head and focus in on my body, here and now. And by writing it all up and putting it together through this lens, hopefully it can help others and maybe be a convincing factor for schools not to cut the arts programs.
I had no intention to go to PSU when I arrived on campus freshman year. I wanted to transfer to some fancy conservatory in New York. But, PSU was where I was supposed to be. There were skills I needed to learn that I would not have learned at a conservatory, connections I would never have made, and I would not have been the same person on the other side. I found IDS, or IDS found me. Either way, IDS was where I needed to be. This program has changed how I think, how i work, and made so much possible for me that wouldn't have been possible if I didn't find myself walking into Lamson 002 that year. I am thankful for the opportunities that IDS has given me and the outlook on learning I've discovered from being here. IDS gave me a place where I belong and helped me grow. Now watch out world, I graduate December 2019.
Actually... I'm not done with this post. Here's the final thing I was doing all semester with this class- my PLN!
My PLN:
Obviously, I had a lot going on this semester. However there was one more piece of the puzzle. My PLN, or Personal Learning Network, is an online space where I can connect with professionals and others working in my field and stay up to date with everything new in my field. I decided to take a different approach this time and rather than using my twitter account like most people do I decided to try out Instagram. I learned it's a bit difficult to start from scratch and it doesn't help I had a lot of large undertakings happening over the course of the semester. But I framed it around theatre and advocacy for the arts, aptly named @artsadvocatealicia. I followed accounts that focus both the general theatre population such as Playbill and Actors Equity Association and education based programs such as National Youth Theatre.
While I didn't post as many big posts as I would have liked I spent time interacting with these accounts, watching stories, and connecting with their content. I also kept getting followers even with minimal activity due to the posts I did post. I did also make use of the stories for myself and those got a good amount of attention as well. I think it was helpful for what it did but I wish I would have been more active on it. My original intention was to use it to document all my progress on my AP on it however I quickly realized there wasn't anything fun to post to document it on Instagram until the actual event. However after the event was over my posts were photos from the event. I had also thought about doing highlights from the presenters however getting the information from them for the program was difficult at the time and I wasn't able to get more information for little bio snapshots like I had hoped. However now I can continue to use my PLN and expand it to continue advocating for arts in schools.