Pina Bauch, the internationally celebrated choreographer, used the method of having dancers create 6 responses to a task or provocation - eg show 6 ways of expressing love without moving your feet … - knowing that the first responses are the most pedantic usually and the later responses are the most whimsically creative … also by providing a limitation eg standing still … it forces the brain to play outside the square. I love the notion that educators are giving attention to the tricky notion of teaching creativity … like creativity itself you only learn by doing and exploring and getting discombobulated in the process :)
You’ve articulated what so many educators intuit but often don’t have the language or training to fully express: that creativity isn’t a flash, it’s a process. And that process requires space. Space to explore, to reflect, to revise. We see this daily in the schools we work with—how the physical environment can either constrain or unleash that kind of iterative thinking. Thank you for naming this missed opportunity not as failure, but as a chance to redesign how we teach creativity, starting with what we model in the room itself!
Pina Bauch, the internationally celebrated choreographer, used the method of having dancers create 6 responses to a task or provocation - eg show 6 ways of expressing love without moving your feet … - knowing that the first responses are the most pedantic usually and the later responses are the most whimsically creative … also by providing a limitation eg standing still … it forces the brain to play outside the square. I love the notion that educators are giving attention to the tricky notion of teaching creativity … like creativity itself you only learn by doing and exploring and getting discombobulated in the process :)
It's Pina Bausch and I am so glad to read her name in context of creativity. 💝
You’ve articulated what so many educators intuit but often don’t have the language or training to fully express: that creativity isn’t a flash, it’s a process. And that process requires space. Space to explore, to reflect, to revise. We see this daily in the schools we work with—how the physical environment can either constrain or unleash that kind of iterative thinking. Thank you for naming this missed opportunity not as failure, but as a chance to redesign how we teach creativity, starting with what we model in the room itself!
Thank you! I’m a believer that creativity, in all its forms, and at all ages, is critical to our overall wellbeing.
This is so well-written! Thank you Zorana!