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Anxiety, Creativity, and Dance Performance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Mary-Elizabeth Manley and
Vietta Elin Wilson
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Extract

This study proposes to investigate how anxiety is related to the dance experience and to a person's creative behaviour within that experience. A number of assumptions regarding the creation, improvisation, composition, and performance of dance have centered around the relationship of anxiety to the dance experience. These assumptions point to anxiety as being integral in the creative behaviour of dancers and as being a vital ingredient for good performance. Others suggest that the dance experience is a medium of expression which reduces tension or anxiety. (See Barron 1972:96–97 and Leith 1972:246.)

This exploratory study looks at the creative potential that an individual brings to a simulated studio composition session. The study also investigates the relationship of this creative potential to dancers' self-reported anxiety and their creativity in performing the composition.

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Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Spring/Summer 1980, pp. 11 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1980

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References

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