Making Connections...

In the 2nd of our discussion groups today we had some great conversations around notions of creativity, advocacy and leadership, social, economic and cultural implications of dance and dance training. Connections were made between themes of interest, across cultures and communities of practice, between theory and practice and through utilizing the comments thread on skype to share resources as we spoke. I heard a strong sense of community in the sharing of practices and noticed the different perspectives we all experience and how we are able to nurture a community of learning through revealing these connections.

Those that were a part of this disucssion please do add links to your blogs below in the comments!!



I thought I'd share as a reflection on the conversations on creativity in our teaching and learning some notes from my own early PhD research around the relationships between environments, creativity and rigor in dance improvisation...

Creativity is not a new concept and creative exploration is not necessarily about seeking or finding ‘newness’; it is about approaches to learning and living.  Creativity is about allowing, offering, inviting a clearing of mind/body/space through which to think/move/feel a little more freely, intuitively perhaps. Whilst not suggesting that creativity is exclusive only to dance and dancers, or indeed the arts, this is where my practice and understanding is formed.  For dancers to engage in a process of exploration (to be creative) is not uncommon, and yet the facilitation of environments conducive with, and the level of engagement and understanding from this engagement can vary considerably and should therefore not be taken as a given facet of dance. To be open to acknowledging and accepting alternatives through the challenging of existing assumptions is pivotal to my practice-as-research.  To be spontaneous whilst re-visiting, re-ordering, re-learning I believe is at the heart of creative exploration in the arts.

 An area I feel is problematic within dance improvisation as a practice of creative learning is its apparent lack of pedagogical structure and rigour, making it a little ambiguous as an educational experience when sitting alongside a curriculum of codified dance techniques with (through documentation at least) longer more hierarchic heritage.  There is an assumption following this line, that improvisation in dance is instinctively creative, as it is apparently without boundaries, open and free.  Context is critical here as we begin to unpeel the layers of the arts in society through to dance as an art, through to particular nuances within the dance experience.  In the context of mainstream Western society, the arts are generally perceived of as free, open, accepting, experimental and creative.  Dance as the most explicitly physical, sensory practice in the arts, attracts the same breadth of description in the context of the other arts.  Within dance, contemporary (modern, post modern) is generally regarded to be more 'creative' than classical ballet, and improvisation, with its perceived lack of form as 'the' creative dance.   

I wonder what your thoughts are around assumptions held with regard to technique, form, structure and pedagogical value in dance?