Art and design involve divergent creative processes. Design is a more constrained domain than art. While creativity in some specific domains, such as painting, sculpture, and music, has been widely studied, some have as yet been little explored. One example is stone carving. What characterizes stone carving, as a creative occupation? What is a…

This article reports a quasi-experiment on the impact of contact improvisation (CI) sessions and free improvisation (FI) interfaces on dance proficiency, improvisation competence/output quality, and multigroup ethnic identity formation of Indian classical dancers in the United Kingdom, United States, Singapore, and Australia. FI participants…

This article comprises a lyrical exposition of the 'in-betweenness' that underlies pedagogical relations and musical practice. The latter comprises making, performing, teaching, and indeed listening to music, phenomena encapsulated in the term 'musicking', first coined by the musicologist Christopher Small in 1999. Improvisatory practice is…

Numerous researchers and educators have identified musical improvisation as a strategy with significant benefits for musical learning. Nevertheless, many educators are reluctant to use it due to insufficient preparation and skills. This study aims to assess the impact of a training programme designed to equip future teachers with tools and…

The Play Observatory was a COVID-19 rapid response project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) exploring children's play experiences during the pandemic through an online survey, case studies and a filmmaking workshop. With access to many of the usual spaces and places of play curtailed during the lockdowns of the pandemic, in this…

This article considers how the performing arts integrate with research, learning and teaching. In doing so, it addresses the relation between research and performance practice, and the connections between research/practice with learning and teaching. Reference to A/R/Tography is made as a constructivist praxis facilitating integration of these…

This study aimed to understand the factors predicting creative activities and creative achievements among university students. Based on a recently proposed framework of 10 creative spaces, we hypothesized that exploring those creative spaces, alongside the personality trait openness to experience and divergent thinking abilities would predict…

A tension between freedom and constraint is characteristic of improvisation practice and pedagogy, presenting challenges for teachers/workshop leaders. To create musical focus in ensemble improvisation, some sounds are encouraged, whilst others are edited out, ignored or marginalised. This article investigates improvised sounds as central or…

This study aims to explore whether the creativity of university students in Higher Vocational Education in China can enhance their creative performance through autonomous motivation. The theoretical foundation of this study is interactionist model of creativity, the study employs structural equation modeling for analysis and validation. A survey…

This article explores a therapeutic theatre project facilitated by an acting educator and an older woman living with mild dementia in regional Victoria, Australia. The co-created process utilised improvisation, storytelling, singing and puppetry to present a performance outcome. A qualitative Participatory Action Research methodological framework…

Although there is a consensus that it is important to teach jazz and the skill of improvisation inherent within it, many feel unprepared to do so. This article presents a simple way for beginners to improvise through the blues scale and harmonic progression at any present skill level in kindergarten through high school general music coursework.…

The "consensual assessment technique" (CAT) represents one of the most popular evaluation techniques used by researchers to assess creative artifacts. In this paper we discuss how the prototypical use of the CAT, while useful for identifying unambiguous examples of creative artifacts, can inadvertently kill the curiosity of researchers…

Movement can be a powerful force for sensory connection and expression in young children who sometimes don't speak. Their kinaesthetic curiosity naturally experiments with--and forms spontaneous relationships through--touching, sensing, and moving-with the world around them. This article wonders what might happen if children's connective movements…

This paper aims to study the features of vocal improvisation using interactive musical technologies. The survey method contributed to determining the level of vocal skills of 214 respondents auditioned before the experiment. The authors developed a training programme based on previously received information. It included breathing, technical,…

In recent years, renewable assignments, or student creations that have value outside of a course, have received considerable attention. However, there is little theoretically grounded inquiry into students' motivation for renewable assignments such as scientific memes. Moreover, it is unknown how public sharing of renewable assignments affects…