The Road To Germinating A Practice

Many a time I have posed the question to myself; 'what does it mean to establish a professional practice?' After reading various blogs from my piers, I have discovered that perhaps the best starting place is to turn back to ones roots in the industry in the most simplistic and the rawest form possible. Thus, I decided to begin with words. Although they have not always been my forte, words are the building blocks of communication and I therefore felt it beneficial to channel and strip back my thoughts on the matter by listing words that I associate with my own practice and its long standing history since 1939. 

Despite this, I wanted to incorporate a sense of imagery into this list and hence I decided to create my word bank in the form of a tree. Generally,  trees represent a fundamental part of existence, providing air for all life and habitats for others. For me, this creates an interesting parallel to dance and over the years I have observed how for some children, including myself, dance is a vital lifeline that comes as naturally as breathing. Furthermore, every tree has a rich, internal history within its rings that correlates to the heritage of my family's dance school that has survived both the war and more recently the pandemic, much like the tree survives harsh winters.

On the contrary, the youth of a dance school is often the most significant part and like the germination of a seed transforming into a tree ringed with experience, I have seen many children grow from saplings into beautiful dancers. Each season, the tree undergoes a dramatic transformation, shedding its leaves in the winter only to be reborn with new leaves that continue its legacy. This reminds me of how each professional practice guides young dancers on their road through life, eventually letting them go into the autumn of their lives before renewing the process with new children to aid.

As a consequence of these closely entwined parallels, I decided to explore my ideas on professional practices through a tree shaped word cloud, further reminding me of these winder analogies that serve to enhance the amalgamation of words. Below is my creation which includes dance genres, the history of my practice, the meaning of dance, and a range of other thoughts that have taken root in my mind.

 

Although the reasoning behind the existence of some of these words contextually are obvious, there are some that are more personal to me or are up to one's interpretation. This brings me to a quote thought to be first said by Nietzsche, which outlines a conflict of interpretations in the most mundane sense alongside an analogy of dance.

 

 

 I have linked an enlightening source below that properly dissects the quote in all its glory, but essentially this quote made me rethink my initial question which sparked this entire process.  After much reconsideration, I now realise that the question 'what does it mean to establish a professional practice?' does not give enough scope for the imagination in the answers I was looking for. Interpretation, as Nietzsche pointed out, is an inescapable part of everyday life and therefore, albeit some people may see a professional practice as a mere business proposition, I see it as much more than that. Therefore, perhaps the more accurate question I should be asking myself is - 'what does my dance practice mean to me in comparison to the other individuals it harbours?' And though the answers to the former segment of the question are somewhat answered in my word cloud above, there is no right or wrong answer to the infinity of interpretation that is stimulated by the depths of such a question.

Sources:

https://wordart.com/edit/7cmrto79nvah

https://philosophybreak.com/articles/dancing-with-nietzsche/?fbclid=IwAR0EEEeXZQD3ycy8N1M3F0MYZf28slRq-r-Nkvhf-0mTsoBVI7WRR3FND2M