Creativity and Me: The Creativity in Dance

“Since early civilisations, the study and practice of the arts have been among the highest and most rigorous embodiments of human imagination and creativity. The ability to imagine, conceive and realise something new, to create something meaningful and valuable that never existed before is the single most prized quality of a work of art.”-Renaissance City Report: Strategic Directions and Recommendations (2000)Dance and other art forms share the word, creative, as a common term which derived from the Latin word creatus, one meaning of which is ‘produced through imaginative skill’ (Marcia L. Lloyd, 2005). I believe that through the choreography and dancing of a routine, an individual is induced to be creative as they have to imagine and visualise the dance as they listen to the beats and rhythms of the music.

A choreographer has to start choreographing a dance on a blank slate as there is no fixed way how the music can be danced to.

creativity

A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

Valentine dance, school

It is heavily influenced by the style of the choreographer and also how the choreographer interprets the music to be like. Often, masterpieces are formed through the sheer imaginative power of the choreographers. The positioning and expressions of the dancers, the transitions of the various ‘scenes’ in a dance all need to be seamlessly woven together by the choreographer to achieve an enchanting dance piece that will enthrall the audience.

It might seem that the choreographer is the only one involved in the whole creative thinking process, however, the dancers have to engage in a creative thinking process too! Dancers do not just engage in physical movements alone, but they have to interpret the movements and try to express the message the dance is trying to convey by their facial expressions and also their overall body language. Dance as we mean it...