Book Review:
The Creative Habit, Learn It and Use It for Life, by Twyla Tharp
By: Lama Iskandarani
“Creativity is not a gift from the gods”, says Twyla Tharp. It is the result of effort and preparation, and it 's within reach of anyone who puts in the effort to nourish it. All it takes is the commitment to make creativity a habit, an essential part of your life. Twyla, the author of this book, has been working in the creative field for over 35 years, so it’s not surprising that she has accumulated so much knowledge along this fruitful journey. She’s one of the nation’s greatest dance choreographers and dancers, and she’s been remarkably successful at it. She believes that creativity is not necessarily just a God-given gift that only
The elimination of distractions, even the ones inside of us, like fears and self-doubt, is imperative to sustain a healthy creative mind.
3. Your Creative DNA Tharp claims that everyone has “creative DNA”, a combination of our key experiences and natural born skills, that add up to diverse sources for creativity for each person. It shows up in different ways, and notably in the distance from which one looks at the world; do you pay attention to detail or to the bigger picture? If you get to know your creative DNA better, then you can have a clearer understanding about the story that you are trying to tell the world. To help define this “Creative DNA”, the author suggests a “Creative biography” exercise which includes 33 questions.
4. Harness your memory In this particular chapter, I read a wonderful quote that says “the metaphor is the soul of art”, which links art to
The best failures are the discrete ones which occur in the privacy of your creative little space. What is so pleasant about these is that the more you fail in private, the less you fail in public, and the best part is that they can incite great ideas in the future. The point is that failure isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
12. The Long Run It wasn’t until she was 58 that Tharp finally felt like “a choreography expert”. All of these little habits and techniques presented throughout this book add up to something bigger. They add up to the day-to-day workflow of a creative person. It is in the repetition of all of these rituals, that a person can go on being more creative day after day. However, like any long term goal, there is no substitution for doing the work, and it necessitates more than just repetition of the habits. It requires dedication and commitment and perseverance. Achieving mastery takes time. Be patient. Never give
Shaughnessy, M. F., & Wakefield, J. F. (2003). Creativity: Assessment. In N. Piotrowski & T. Irons-Georges (Eds.), Magill's encyclopedia of social science:Psychology (pp. 459-463). Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.
Twyla Tharp, an American dancer and choreographer, was born on July 1, 1941 in Portland, Oregon. When Twyla was a child her and her parents moved to Southern California and the family opened a drive-in movie theater the Twyla worked at from the age of eight. Twyla began taking piano lessons at the age of two and dance lessons at the age of four. Twyla’s mother wanted her daughter to be accomplished in many fields so she enrolled her daughter in various arts and other classes such as French, German, and shorthand. Soon after beginning her dance lessons Twyla developed a deep interest in all the types of dance available to her. Twyla attended Pacific High School in San Bernardino, California and studied at the Vera Lynn school of Dance. After High school Twyla left home to attend Pomona College and later transferred to Bernard College in New York City where she studied art history. Twyla later found she had an intense passion in dance so she took dance classes off campus and began to study at the American Ballet Theater School where she studied with many great dancers and...
In this study 491 twelve-year-old children were asked to complete surveys that would allow researchers to measure variations in creativity. Of these 491 students, 53% were female, 34% were African American, and 66% were Caucasian American. Due to this variation in population researchers were testing they were able to get an ov...
Learning about Dance: Dance as an Art Form and Entertainment provides visions into the many features of dance and inspires scholars to keep an open mind and think critically about the stimulating, bold, ever-changing and active world of dance. Learning about Dance is particularly useful for those who do not have a wide and diverse dance contextual, such as students in a preliminary level or survey dance course. This book consists of twelve chapters. Chapter one dance as an art form focuses on the basic structures of dance. Dance is displayed through the human body, it has the control to communicate and induce reactions. Dance can be found in many different places, it enables the participants and seekers to touch and knowledge the joy of movement. Dance is discovered as being one of the oldest art forms worldwide. Dance existed in early cultures was recognized in a sequence of rock paintings portrayed dance. Since this discovery of rock paintings, several other forms of art have been found that depict dance. People used rituals in order to worship the gods and believed that the rituals held magical and spiritual powers. During the ancient period civilizations sentient decisions began to be made with regard to dance. Other periods that had an impact on dance were the medieval period, the renaissance period, and the contemporary period. Chapter two the choreographer, the choreographer is a person who comes up with the movements created into a dance routine. The choreographer expresses themselves through choreography because this is their way of communicating with the audience. In order to be a choreographer you must have a passion for dance. Each choreographer has their own approaches and ways of making up a routine. Choreographers ...
6) Artistic Inspiration and the Brain , Another response to Dr. Bruce Miller study - FTD & creativity
Shaughnessy, M. F., & Wakefield, J. F. (2003). Creativity: Assessment. In N. Piotrowski & T. Irons-Georges (Eds.), Magill's encyclopedia of social science:Psychology (pp. 459-463). Pasadena, CA: Salem Press.
In their article, “The Creativity Crisis”, authors Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman explore the urgency of the downfall in the public’s “creativity quotient.” Bronson and Merryman emphasize the necessity for young children to be imaginative. Through an IBM poll, they verify that with the decrease of creativity in our society comes an array of consequences seen in the work field. The authors remind readers of another reason for the importance of creativity; they argue that creative ideas can solve national matters. Hence, Branson and Merryman believe that original ideas are key for a better world. Though I concede that creativity is a vital key to the solution of many national problems, I still insist that teaching creativity,
After reading Originals by Adam Grant I was left feeling challenged. Grant brings about many different subjects, from parenting methods to organization, that have an impact on an individual’s creativity. I have never considered myself the most original thinker and I had always dreaded “outside of the box” projects, but Grant’s guidance throughout the book showed that that being a logical thinker and being original are not mutually exclusive concepts, as I had once thought. Instead, when it comes to being creative Grant focuses on how to break away from what he calls “default thinking”. Grant challenges the norms by considering that procrastination is not always the worst option, which I found to be interesting and a little stressful, as I am
Sporre, Dennis J. The Creative Impulse: An Introduction to the Arts. 4th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1996. 310-378.
Howard Gardner has studied many creative masters within the context of his theory of the three core elements of creativity. These include the relation between the child and the adult creator, the relation between the creator and others, and the relation between the creator and his or her work. Karen Horney’s childhood and adult life have been reflected in much of her work. She was born in 1885, the end of the Victorian era. Horney’s father was a “God-fearing fundamentalist who strongly believed that women were inferior to men and were the source of all evil in the world” (Hergenhahn & Olson...
Anna Quindlen writes about how to foster creativity in children, and by extension adults by doing nothing and allowing their minds to foster creativity during this time, free time. She expresses her thoughts in “Doing nothing is something” a short essay. Quindlen proposes that kids are too busy and do not have enough free time. In this down time or free time they make their own adventures and form their own ideas. She presents the idea that to even start the creative process to create literature, music, and art one must have free time to let the mind wonder and create. On a moment’s reflection, the thesis that Quindlen presents looks sound but she does not allow for a person can think creatively without down time.
In conclusion to some up this essay the term ‘creativity’ will always cause a debate in the educational system as. There will always be difficulty defining it as many use the term too loosely to have a definitive meaning. It requires risk taking, it is difficult to portray creativity when schools are so obsessed with right or wrong answers for ways of doing things. Society teaches us the risks are bad because the government and its policies interfere with our own choices and decisions.
It’s best for people to experience failures to learn from them and never repeat them. The definition of failure would be “the lack of success.” Failures could range on how important they are. Some failures could be major and only affect a person in a small way. Some failures could affect a person on how the person views life or how the person lives it. An example of a small failure could be to check the milk expires to avoid drinking it. A person could of accidentally drank the rotten milk and then learned from that point on to check the expiration date instead of just drinking it. That failure wouldn’t be as important as other
Herein lies the problem. The children that we are educated are and will be faced with new challenges that current education systems all over the world have been failing to meet. It would seem that structures of mass domain education suppress the innately imprinted creativity found in every living person and widely known specialist on the subject, Sir Ken Robinson, goes as far as saying that we are, “educating people out of their creativity” (Giang, 2013). But if the school system is to make adjustments to explore and cultivate creativity more how are they to do so without losing total structure? Robinson acknowledges this by saying that, “in every creative approach some of the things we’re looking for are hard, if not impossible to quantify. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t matter.”
Some creative ideas are amazing, simple and others complex. Creativity is a process, and it improves when a person continually work hard and come out with new ideas. Harris (1998)