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Chapter 1
Designing your research project
Chapter outline:
Finding a topic that moves you
Connecting to the field
Initial steps…
Strategies for locating relevant sources
Shaping your inquiry
Activity: Shaping your research topic
Project scope
Working title
Research questions
Aims and objectives
Considering methods
Activity: Speaking and listening – peer exercise
Activity: Annotating a bibliographic
Student comments
Summary points
Orienteering: Imagine you are in a new city without a map or phone. The surroundings include only a few familiar landmarks. You may feel unsettled and disorientated by being in this unfamiliar place. You will have to venture out to discover this new city, to get to know what is of interest, important and necessary in order to find your place. Exploring your surroundings will assist you in understanding more about the area. Where you start will become a grounding from which to build your own path ahead.
This chapter will be useful to you in the early stages of your research project. Your university or college may require you to submit a dissertation proposal for approval. Working with the tasks, activities and guiding questions in this chapter will help you to put together a good quality dissertation proposal. However, there is much value in continuing or perhaps revisiting the activities in this chapter beyond that initial stage to ensure that you keep up your interest in the topic, that your inquiry is connected to the field and that it is shaped effectively for your research purposes.
Finding a topic that moves you
When you begin to create a piece of dance, there is usually a starting point, even if this is difficult to locate. For many, this could be:
•a question
•music or sound
•themes or topics
•a certain image or picture
•a particular space
•poetic words
•a mathematical calculation
•a kind of movement
•a letter you received
•someone else’s work.
The list in some senses is endless. Maybe you can even picture yourself attempting to find initial movement material from a starting point or imagine the methods you will use to develop it further. You may even have already formed a working structure. Perhaps you are the kind of person who likes to picture the finished product, attempting to match the finished dance piece to a specific image you had in mind. Whatever your approach, the creative process is alive and animated with questions:
•How do I put across a certain sense of something?
•How do I know when to move forward with something or if something is ‘right’?
•What choices do I have?
•What material should I use?
•Why am I stuck?
•What if I disagree with someone?
•How might I develop something or know when to change direction?
•How will I know when I have finished?
In some ways, your dissertation – whether practice-based or written – is like a piece of dance you might create. It is underpinned by a process of inquiry and creativity. There are choices and decisions you will make to shape your dissertation, just like in a choreographic process. At this point in your studies, you are required to find a topic or focus that will lead you into an area where questions can arise. It can be helpful to consider the skills and processes you have already developed in a dance, choreography or improvisation context and to use these to kick start your dissertation project from an intuitive starting point.
Let’s consider for a moment the dance process of improvisation. Imagine an improvisational score in which you begin with stillness. Notice this stillness. Then read through the following list of prompts of possible interests and, as you do so, notice what moves you. Notice how something rests with you. Notice your first thoughts or images that come to mind as you read. Are you attracted to something? Does something prompt you to consider a more specific example? Or do you lack engagement, feel disinterested or positively dislike the thought of it?
•a dance style or process such as choreography
•a role such as teacher, administrator or therapist
•an area such as fitness or community
•a business in the form of a company or dance school
•a form of identity such as gender or race
•the quality or appearance of a performance
•a medium such as photography or film or other art forms
•a single word – turn, jump, look
•an image – one seen or imagined
•a concept – stillness, silence, space.
Notice what you are drawn towards. Consider why you might be drawn towards this and take a moment to write down the things you notice. Often you can be drawn towards something you are close to in some way or even passionate about. It may simply be something you wish to know more about. Try not to decide on something simply because you already know a lot about it. Instead, seek out and embrace the challenge of a new topic area, so that you can develop your existing research skills further. With this list now consider for a moment where ‘dance’ as a term might sit in this area of interest, perhaps where the interest can intersect the context of dance and vice versa.
In recognising your own areas of interest, let’s for a moment turn to some existing areas of dance scholarship that have been developed through former research activity in dance. Table 1.1 outlines the particular areas of dance that have been established through dance studies. Reviewing this table will be useful in contextualising your research interest and will give you a starting point for finding source material. As you read, consider the focus point above and see how each scholarship area corresponds to your research interest.
Table 1.1 Existing areas of dance scholarship
Topic area | Research focus | Suggested introductory publications |
Popular Dance Culture | Looking at popular forms of dance, key dance figures and practices at any given time and their contexts within society. Research can be concerned with genre, technique, social and vernacular dance forms and their development and meaning within society and culture. | Blanco Borelli, M. (ed.) (2014) The Oxford Handbook of Dance and the Popular Screen. Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
Choreography | Looking at dance making in a range of contexts. Research can be concerned with a choreographer’s role, skills and identity, process and performance. Choreography in research can also be understood to suggest an organisation of particular pathways for thinking and social practice. | Butterworth, J. and Wildschut, L. (eds.) (2009) Contemporary Choreography: A Critical Reader. London: Routledge. |
Performance Practices | Addressing current dance practice and performance in relation to a broader understanding of arts contexts. This might include the political, cultural and social concerns that relate to particular pe... |
