Task: 6a

Focus Group:

I carried out two 1hr workshop for my ballet students and my hip hop students; the aim of the focus . group was to recognise their thoughts and understanding of ballet in group and class discussion. I was hoping by the end of the workshop students will have a clear knowledge of the career advantages, benefits in ballet for example stamina, alignment and artistry, looking at celebrities who are known for their singing/dance such as pussy cat dolls Kimberley Wyatt, Victoria Beckham and Cheryl Cole looking at and the similarities between ballet and hip hop regarding to core stability and alignment. I did this by looking at DVD footage with the rest of the group showing New York City Ballet Workout DVD and Pineapple dance studio Masterclass Ultimate Street DVD, in the hope of a better understanding that even if you are never going to be the next Darcy Bussel you can still have a career, maybe not in ballet itself but in other dance genres.

I found this to be very useful. I started the focus group by putting twelve students into 3 different groups and asking them to brainstorm "What do you think ballet is?" by analysing their results looking at frequency that certain words that appear and identify a trend in both groups. I am hoping to find that students at the beginning of the focus group are unaware about the benefits in ballet but by the end of the focus group i am hoping to see students perception and understanding was widened by asking the same question "What do you think ballet is?" and eyeballing their data again to identify the frequent words. During the focus group we looked at body images of ballet and hip hop dancers this was in the hope to explain that regardless to their shape and size the importance laid in flexibility, strength and confidence. I did this with the group as a whole to instigate a debate in the class.