Creativity Research in Music, Visual Art, Theater, and Dance

Abstract

Abstract Because engagement in the arts generally is assumed to offer opportunities for inherently creative acts, it is easy to presume that research in the arts and research in creativity are naturally intertwined. This is not true and, in fact, although a very large body of literature on “General” creative thinking exists, a much smaller proportion of research focuses exclusively on creativity in the arts. The purpose of this chapter is to review the empirical research of creativity in music, visual art, dance, and theater in order to better understand what is known about creative development, learning, and thinking in these disciplines. One goal is to extend the literature review of creative thinking in music begun by Webster (1992) and to supplement it with examples of empirical studies of creativity in the other arts that have been published in the past 20 years. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the most compelling issues in creativity research and how these might influence a research agenda for the future.