Paola Napolitano

Our Sunday MAPP meeting on Sep the 26th gave us space to discuss on Knowledge, Information and Learning. One of the points that stood up for me concerned the definition of knowledge which, unless shared with others, it remains just a personal opinion. This made me think of the definition of performance I heard long time ago, by which it has to involve the presence of public in order to be classed as performance. So in a way, knowledge can be identified in relation to others e.g. students and teachers. This led to expand Dewey's view on 'transactional learning' and the un-learning needed sometimes in planning or delivering dance classes. A few terms that were mentioned to describe teachers are vessels, channels, means, which I associate to the general idea of a flexible container that alternatively becomes content according to the time of and the role in the conversation. Starting Module 2, I am deepening my understanding about positivist and non-positivist standpoints. As a...

One of the most interesting features of somatic practices is the absence of the mirror in class which is much used in other contexts as a checking tool for one’s body appearance and physical outcome. Why is that? As a commercial dancer I got used to train while watching my body or the perception of my body at the mirror, and to compare myself with others’ performance all the time. By studying the concept of ‘Dualism’ and how this translates into mind-body separation, I have recently reflected on how many body practices still use external props for self-assessment. Not to mention, how many professional environments completely deny the unification of the material, psychological and spiritual aspects of a person. Leonardo Da Vinci’s quote ‘One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself’ encapsulates the essence of challenge and self-mastery as opposed to basing one’s performance on external value scale. Yet again, what is the perception of ourselves in our dail...

I was really lucky to be able to attend the session this afternoon with the academic team of MAPP. As I took a break from my working schedule, this moment was just the right treat for me, especially in this chaotic moment in time. A few concepts that stood out for me were non separation between artistic research and personal endeavors, starting from any points for research, leaving the assumption of correctness and give space to personal freedom in research, giving and feeling joy in approaching creative realms. I was particularly struck by the research about theatre, translation and sound by Pedro De Senna, as I conducted a similar research for my final dissertation in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies in 2017. Looking at life and artistic investigation, I appreciate they’re both part of the same whole. Personally, I find it quite challenging some times to integrate completely unrelated daily activities into my artistic research, while I tend to spend more time for reflection pu...

  Image  free of copyright restrictions, downloaded from  Pinback button reading Teach the Children the Truth | Smithsonian Institution (si.edu) By reading Decolonizing Methodologies  I have reflected on the concept of research from different angles. Ethics is the dominant theme in the book and plenty of insights are offered in regard to the application of research methodologies. Before understanding what academic writing implies, I much relied on presenting a topic with a one-way approach which would support my ideas. During the past two years, we have been confronted with an abundant flows of fake news, mis-information and conspiracy theories which seem to have something in common, a mono-directional perspective, pushing themselves forward in order to prevail over other streams. But what’s the effect of this modality of information sharing? The impactful resonance of imposing one view only is that it may significantly influence, or better diminish, the r...