Abstract
Discussions on creativity available in the English language are dominated by western theorists and western philosophical understandings. These understandings emphasise individuality, innovation, the rational, and the necessity of a creative product. However, feminist, non-western and indigenous theorists assert the importance of culture, community and the non-rational, such as the spiritual, and place less emphasis on creative products. A Feminist Participatory approach informed by Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews (FP-I) provides a lens through which creativity may be viewed with an appreciation of the wider lived experience of the creative person. For a dance practitioner or researcher, this wider lived experience may include rational and scientifically verifiable elements, but also non-rational elements of relationship, community, culture, spirituality and the natural world. The Bright Creative Life approach arises out of such a worldview and includes preferring, practising, gathering, selecting, finding quiet spaces, laying creative work aside, and ritual, prayer and meditation.
Highlights
Emerging from a feminist participatory approach informed by Indigenous Peoples’ worldviewsi (FP-I), The Bright Creative Life brings a broader understanding of the lived experience of creative individuals
Each artmaker undertook several months of art-making in her own area and I met with her three times to help her reflect on what she had been doing and learning, and so that I could gain insights concerning the lived experiences of these artmakers in such areas as creativity; one of the outcomes was The Bright Creative Lifeii
53 Te Te Auahatanga me te Ara Auaha Creativity and creative Process:—Bright lived experience of the art-maker
Summary
Emerging from a feminist participatory approach informed by Indigenous Peoples’ worldviewsi (FP-I), The Bright Creative Life brings a broader understanding of the lived experience of creative individuals. From the websites describing Indigenous Peoples in general, and from kaupapa Māori knowledge in particular, it is clear that Indigenous Peoples’ fundamental beliefs assume that culture, spirituality, embodied knowing xi and creativity are interwoven and inseparable in life.xii. In Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews, knowing is viewed holistically as an interweaving of the cultural, spiritual and embodied, and including such areas as creation, relatedness, beliefs, the Land, colonisation, uniqueness and respect for elders. Whereas an interwoven FP-I worldview reveals a wide range of ways of knowing, some overlapping and some unique, the interweaving of values between feminist, participatory and Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews reveals certain important areas of commonality; all value justice and the worth of individuals. Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews seek change in areas such as self-determination, recognition by selves and others of the validity and dynamic of indigenous ways of being, and personal, political and group action. An FP-I worldview interweaves both the points of commonality between the three contributing worldviews—including political action and changes sought in the dynamics of research—and the unique foci of each worldview
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