Campus Session- Module 1- October 29th 2014

Inspiration from the senses

Paula talked about how we can get inspiration from everywhere for our work and about remembering the importance of the senses as stimuli in the creative thought process and as tools for reflection.

We discussed reflective journal writing and the fact that it isn't just a diary of events but more a collection of ideas, thoughts and feelings that can include images, videos, hyperlinks to websites and anything else that you want to write about.

We did some exercises to illustrate the role of the senses as stimuli. These were as follows:

SMELL

1. Paula told us to close our eyes and she handed out paper bags and asked us to smell them. We had to say what we thought the smell was and what it made us think of.

The idea behind this was that different smells can trigger memories that in turn cause us to reflect on past events. Reflection is key to part two of Module 1, and, in fact,  to the course in general, so anything that can make us think about things we have done in our work and about what we have learnt from our experience is valuable.


TOUCH

2. Paula shook hands with each of us. She has a firm handshake that she said was instilled into her by her father. We talked about touch and how something as simple as a greeting can speak volumes about the person. This led on to a discussion about body language and the fact that 70% of the way we communicate in person with each other is via our body language.

Myself, Sarah and Lisa who attended the session are all from a dance background so touch is an integral part of our work. Our bodies are our instruments of communication and we use them to channel thoughts and feelings through the medium of dance.

We did a brief mime of a morning routine to illustrate communication via body movement.


HEARING

3. As a means of using sound to stimulate the imagination we created an improvised Halloween story. Paula began and we all added a section to it. We were listening, interacting and feeding off each other's ideas to create our own.



SIGHT

4. Paula shared some of her Instagram images with us and talked about some of the inspiration behind the images she had created. She asked us to take some photos once we had left the campus session and see whether any of the images we collected provided inspiration for our work and in turn for our reflective writing.

The above image is one I took on my way home. It was taken at King's Cross station. It made me recall a dance I had choreographed called 'Remembrance' which was a contemporary piece about a young girl losing her sweetheart during the first world war. It also thought the image was appropriate because it will soon be remembrance day and it is the centenary of WW1.

The fact that I took the photograph at a train station made me think about all the journeys I had taken in my life and the different routes I had embarked upon and made me wonder where the current BAPP Arts journey might take me.

TASTE

Paula asked us to do our own exercise on taste after the session. I ate a bar of chocolate on the train. I'm supposed to be on a diet so this sent me on a guilt trip and provided the inspiration for a dance entitled 'Forbidden Fruit'!

I found the session really helpful. As well as all of the above we got chance to ask questions and talk about where we were up to on the course. It gave me food for thought- literally!