The Third Demo Tour

• What is "demo tour"? As a docent-in-training, I'm trained in a progressive way. Every time I choose one or two pieces of artwork and then give a presentation to my fellow docents, who act as visitors to the art museum.
• So far I've practiced to start from the greeting to visitors, introduction to the museum, introduction to exhibition, gallery policies, presentation of artworks, and the transition. As I get acquainted with the process, I try hard to overcome the fear when speak in front of the public. Compared to other docents, I have even more challenges because English is not my mother tongue. 
• In the third demo tour, I chose Odalis Valdivieso's Untitled and Loriel Beltran's Bus Shelter Paintings.
• I found there are pros and cons in terms of the sequence in which I give the presentation: the pros: I could learn A LOT from other docents' presentation, given the fact that Chipi and Nancy do some critiques after each of them; the cons: anxiety won't go until it's my turn! It could last as long as it could! 
• I could feel the immense progresses everyone has made this time. I personally love Kathleen's because she has an inborn sense of humor. Joining her tour is like having random conversation and that is what I'm urged to achieve! And of course with her fluent English, everything goes so smooth and natural!
• I noticed in this demo tour, everyone puts more emphasis on the fact of new facility PAMM. I guess the site visit last Wednesday works and impresses everyone A LOT. Besides, I found the designer of it very important when feeding visitors with information. However I don't know the designer very well and have to check it out online. It should be pronounced as Herzog & de Meuron. It is french! Beautiful!
• As I keep practicing the skills of giving tours, I am getting to realize one thing: Always over-prepared, but never anticipate you could give every line in manuscripts. The reasons are for one thing, you couldn't remember when put into the context of real situation; for the other, giving a tour is more of a process of interaction with the public and you won't be able to precisely predict what questions they ask, and what responses they make, etc. But once you are well prepared, you could feel comfortable and confident as a docent to be able to answer the questions. 
• This time I went through a trial of adaptation to circumstances. The gallery within which the works of art are set was very packed when I gave the tour. I responded by keeping my audience going while not disturbing student groups (the real audience) there. Nancy and Chipi admired my way of controlling the situation.