Abstract
Creative choice is an individual act. As in other fields such as filmmaking, dance creation is based on a cognitive dualism that considers the choreographer as the creative decision-maker, while the dancer is objectified. The dancer’s body is an instrument for exploration of the choreographer’s imagery. We claim that the products of creativity are minute but crucial modifications of transitory stages of a dance rehearsal. On the one hand, attention is given to a dance company as a distributed cognitive system. The choreographer communicates in diverse modalities, which carry specific information, physical as well as symbolic. Through the analysis of an audiovisual and cognitive ethnography with ELAN software we find differences in decision-making patterns across multimodal instructions. On the other hand, we apply Social Network Analysis and UCINET software as a methodological innovation in order to formalize data from observed rehearsal settings. In all, the choice of modalities in the chorographical instruction shapes movement production, which is based on dyads, triads and other forms of creative interaction.
Highlights
In the art field, professionals define creative choice as a strictly individual act
Following the contributions of distributed knowledge (Hollan, Hutchins & Kirsh 2000), multimodal action (Alac 2003) and cognitive sociology (Knorr-Cetina 1999), we provide a detailed video analysis with ELAN software, for analyzing sequence of filmed interaction and UCINET, a key software for Social Network Analysis
Cognitive ethnography is an innovative approach to creativity studies, which typically focus either on micro individual decisions, reasons and conventions (Faulkner & Becker 2009; Buscatto 2008; Sorignet 2004; Becker 1999), or on the objective distribution of capital and resources in the professional hierarchy (Rannou & Roarik 2006; Menger 2002; Bourdieu 1998)
Summary
Professionals define creative choice as a strictly individual act. creativity is a product of interactive exchanges that are expressed by the individual and by the group (Feyerabend 1987). The smallest unit of analysis in sociology, within a cognitive ethnography of a dance company. Our general hypothesis is that the choreographer’s creativity goes beyond individual intentions to become an emerging product of the dance company. Extended rehearsal observation allowed us to define the chorographical act as the product of the choreographer’s selective attention selection to the dancing material. Following the contributions of distributed knowledge (Hollan, Hutchins & Kirsh 2000), multimodal action (Alac 2003) and cognitive sociology (Knorr-Cetina 1999), we provide a detailed video analysis with ELAN software, for analyzing sequence of filmed interaction and UCINET, a key software for Social Network Analysis. Longitudinal research of a prestigious company based in London sets up the ground for claiming that the dance rehearsals are built on social relations of production. This paper acknowledges the ties of mutual repression that are at the base of any artistic decision-making
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