The spectrum of distributed creativity: tango dancing and its generative modalities

As scholars have recently emphasized, creativity is not restricted to the individual mind; it can happen in and through interaction. To evaluate the legitimacy of claims about “distributed creativity,” we propose a compare-and-contrast approach to Argentine tango. Tango is an improvisational leader–...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Kimmel, Michael, Van Alphen, Floor
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2022
País:España
Institución:Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Repositorio:Biblos-e Archivo. Repositorio Institucional de la UAM
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.uam.es:10486/710046
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10486/710046
https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000515
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:interaction-based creativity
distributed cognition
embodied cognition
emergence
dance improvisation
Psicología
Descripción
Sumario:As scholars have recently emphasized, creativity is not restricted to the individual mind; it can happen in and through interaction. To evaluate the legitimacy of claims about “distributed creativity,” we propose a compare-and-contrast approach to Argentine tango. Tango is an improvisational leader–follower dance of a formally constrained kind, yet one that also allows for a range of modes of being creative together in real-time interaction. Six dance couples were filmed while improvising and subsequently interviewed. Based on video vignettes of a few seconds duration, we microgenetically reconstructed the embodied “give-and-take” between partners, from which creative trajectories emerge. The spectrum of cocreative modalities ranges from creativity realized in interaction, but bearing some mark of the individual, to creativity, in which the interaction itself becomes an operative mechanism. Cocreation can happen in forms guided by a single person, yet jointly executed (“leader creativity”), in subordinate spaces that provide for some individual creative autonomy within a collective dynamic, in parallel or additive creative interaction forms, but also in genuinely multiplicative forms in which self-organizing interaction dynamics become a powerful causal factor that leverages creativity. To accommodate these various modalities, we argue for a dynamic-systemic account, which looks at interdependencies between micro- and macrolevels. Our framework recognizes different degrees of creative autonomy within interaction; it hereby avoids a dichotomy between individualistic accounts and interactionism with a purely collective-level focus