Shared Ground: Understanding Individuals' Affects on the Creative Process

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Date

2018-05

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The Ohio State University

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Abstract

I am a contemporary dancer, choreographer, and dance notator, and I have participated in many different movement-generative creative processes. Through my experiences, I have come to understand dance as a space for individuals to learn how to connect. In each new work I help facilitate, I witness dancers and choreographers investing their full bodies and minds in the work as they collaborate. Across my efforts, I have learned that every body is home to an individually eclectic range of mental and physical skillsets. It is clear that no body can replicate movement without first fitting it to its personal range of expertise. Yet groups come to share in the collective task of learning a dance, and in our collaborative communication dancers learn how to use differences of body and mind to work together. I am interested in how individuals’ body histories affect the creative process. I wondered whether two resulting works stemming from the same initial movement phrase would reflect my aesthetics, or the movement influences of the dancers.

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Choreography, Laban Systems of Movement Analysis, Individual Diversity, Relationship-building, Creative Process, Dance

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