Creative Process Mentoring: Teaching the “Making” in Dance-Making

Abstract

Within the Western fine arts tradition of concert and theatrical dance, new dances may be created in any number of ways. No matter how dance making begins, however, unless the work is to be improvised afresh each time it is performed, a process of developing, revising, and “setting” the work needs to take place. To move confidently and successfully from thinking up an idea for a dance to generating movement, to putting the finishing touches on the work, a choreographer must make hundreds, perhaps thousands, of creative decisions, each of which may be seen as a judgment of artistic taste. Lavender proposes creative process mentoring as a powerful way to facilitate the artistic work of choreographers. Following the presentation of a descriptive model of the basic “operational moments” of dance making in which challenges arise and must be met as any dance is made, he describes how a creative process mentor may assist a choreographer in recognizing and managing these challenges. He closes with thoughts on how rehearsal criticism, as distinct from dance criticism, may enhance the effectiveness of the creative process mentor, and thus of the choreographer.