“Creativity for me is something that’s absolutely critical, and I think it’s something that you can teach. I think the technicities of creativity can be taught and shared, and I think you can find out things about your own personal physical signature, your own cognitive habits, and use that as a point of departure to misbehave beautifully.” – Wayne McGregor
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Choreography is the creative process of dance making. For the sake of performance dance, practice and knowledge of how the process functions are essential. But taking the idea of it as the art of how one uses and moves their body, in other words, how they present themselves to the world through their gestures, then choreography is an essential everyday component of life.
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“And we all know what that body is like in the real world, so one of the aspects of physical thinking that we think about a lot is this notion of proprioception, the sense of my own body in the space in the real world.” – Wayne McGregor
It is important to acknowledge the fact that the way we move is a part of the way we are perceived by others. It is then clearly understood that by flowing through life and interacting with people beautifully it will make for a better life. I’m not saying to dance your way through your day, although I’m sure you’d have a great time and others would as well watching you! The point is more to keep your body into consideration and to know that your unconscious choreography is ultimately affecting your environment and might sometimes even make a difference in the outcome of a situation or interaction.
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“Creativity should refer to an action or idea that is new and also socially valuable; it is an interaction between a person’s thoughts and social and cultural contexts.” – Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist
Maybe it could help to know about the creative process of choreography to flow more gracefully in everyday life. But what is a creative process anyways even without the specifics of choreography? For overall creative processes there are 5 stages:
Conceptualization
“Think about them as architectural objects, so what they are, are just pure lines. They’re no longer people, just pure lines, and I’m going to work with them almost as objects to think with.” – Wayne McGregor
It is normally something that arouses interest making it easy for the person to become immersed in the content. It is something that evokes curiosity or presents a problem to be explored.
This relates to life in the sense that in everything we do we should be curious and give the task at hand our all. Our body language will reveal whether we are interested or not; and not only will the people around you feel better, but the whatever it is you are doing will also turn out better, if you are into it. Find the good in everything you (have to) do even if it’s not something that interests you.
Incubation
After brainstorming, the creative problem is put aside and ideas germinate or churn below the conscious level of thought connecting the dots of all the possibilities.
This relates to life in the sense that it is important to think things through. Sometimes ideas need to brew for a while in order to become the best of what they can be.
Revelation
This is the moment when all the dots are connected when all the mix of ideas and thoughts link up in just the right order to make sense.
This relates to life in the sense that eventually the pieces fall into place. Even if all is chaos at first and nothing seems to make any sense, push through (don’t give up) and you will reach that moment of insight and clarity.
“But what’s important about it is how it is that they’re grasping information, how they’re taking information, how they’re using it, and how they’re thinking with it…so what they’re doing is grasping aspects of that movement and they’re generating it into a phrase.” – Wayne McGregor
Validation
This is the hard part when you have to evaluate what you came up with, simplify the whole to its essentials, and determine what parts of the overall idea merit development. There may be too much going on, too many pieces, or maybe not enough, some pieces are missing.
This relates to life in the sense that every obstacle in life requires critical thinking to be executed efficiently. Don’t get overwhelmed or discouraged, just focus! Learn to sift through your thoughts and know which are, or are not, valuable.
Elaboration and Finalization
The final step is the phase that requires all the actual work, the hands-on production of whatever it is that will be presented. This is when the inspired content is translated into words, an invention, a painting, movement, etc.
This relates to life in the sense that the ideas are many, and you can come up with them all day long, but what really matters, in the end, is if you ACT on them. Turn all the thinking, ideas and conceptualizing into something of substance that can be used or experienced.
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“You must be passionate about whatever you are creating. Passion fuels the creative process and propels it through difficult stages when it seems the end product will never be realized. It also enables you to develop strategies and put in the hard work necessary to achieve your goal.” – Kaufman and Gregoire, authors of Wired To Create
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“Dance making is a spiraling, circular progression in which the choreographer intermittently returns to beginning steps when needed.” Image from: Human Kinetics
Summary
In a nutshell, for a choreographer, first, there is inspiration that evokes feelings and response. Then there are mental pictures or bodily feelings that are transformed into movement. Afterwards, these movements are refined, modified, and molded into a dance that is performed and appreciated.
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For a person in everyday life, this translates into: First be enthusiastic. Live life inspired by everything. Reflect on the way this makes you think and behave. How you present things to people should be clear and precise for them to understand. Sometimes body gestures can be used as a tool for engaging the people’s interest. This is communication of intent where movements are interconnected to the message in a conscious way.
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“So for me, choreography is very much a process of physical thinking. It’s very much in mind, as well as in body, and it’s a collaborative process. It’s something that I have to do with other people. You know, it’s a distributed cognitive process in a way.” – Wayne McGregor
The following video is what inspired this article. It is different (yet similar) than what’s been discussed above. In it, Wayne McGregor does a show and tell presenting 3 creative processes of choreography. You can really feel the passion he has for dance so it’s very exciting to watch.
The post How The Creative Process And Choreography Are Integral Components To Success appeared first on Educate Inspire Change.