Refilling the Creative Well and Excavating Creativity: How to Hold on to Inspiration and the Motivation to Dance
ANNA PETERS HAS BEEN DANCING FOR 10 YEARS, AND IS CURRENTLY A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON WHERE SHE IS STUDYING BIOLOGY AND DANCE. IN ADDITION TO GOING TO SCHOOL, ANNA PLANS TO CONTINUE TEACHING BALLET IN THE GREATER SEATTLE AREA. IN HER SPARE TIME, ANNA ENJOYS RE-READING HARRY POTTER (FOR THE BILLIONTH TIME), BINGE-WATCHING ALL OF THE SPIDERMAN MOVES, SINGING LOUDLY TO HAMILTON, AND PAINTING AND PHOTOGRAPHING DANCERS.
By Anna Peters
I have two terms for you: Refilling the creative well and excavating creativity. Two concepts in the ever-frustrating realm of inspiration, motivation, and creativity.
Refilling the Creative Well: This is a term that is used a lot in writing, especially for fiction, but it works in all realms of creativity. This is the act of finding inspiration. Of going outside of yourself and drawing in new ideas. Of filling that corner of your mind that is dedicated to nurturing these ideas.
Excavating Creativity: This is a term that I picked up from one of my dance professors. Excavate. To unearth. To dig out. To reveal. Excavation implies force. It is something you have to work for. In terms of excavating creativity, it is forcefully pulling it out of the recesses of your mind, digging for it until you find it, and then bringing it to the surface so that it can be used.
I would argue that one cannot exist without the other. What use is excavating if there is nothing to be found? You can sit and think all you want, but if you are suffering from a creative block, I find that looking elsewhere for creativity tends to have faster results. You must first refill your creative well with a multitude of ideas, feelings, and concepts. Vague implications of creativity. A raw diamond. From there, you excavate. You uncover. You take your raw diamond, and you polish and cut it until it is the glittering jewel you desire.
But what happens when the creative well runs dry? When there seems to be nothing left for you to draw out of its depths? This is when you have to start refilling, which can sometimes be exhausting; because guess what? That also requires creativity.
Especially now, with perceived limits placed around our creativity due to COVID-19, refilling this creative well and excavating creativity can be difficult tasks. I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say that we are tired of being at home. We are sick of taking classes over zoom. With the vaccine slowly rolling out, there is an end on the horizon, but for now, we must do our part to keep ourselves and others safe. For many dancers, that means staying at home. We simply cannot do all that we want to do when we’re dancing in our living rooms over zoom, and this puts a huge damper on creativity and inspiration.
For me especially, I have been struggling with holding on to my inspiration and motivation to dance. My creative well feels empty. I’m not sure if there is anything for me to excavate. Yes, that is incredibly depressing, but worry not! There are things that we can do as dancers to rekindle our inspiration and find the motivation to move.
It can be hard to think of ways to find inspiration, so I have compiled a list of different activities and ideas to help refill creative wells. Some are things that I do regularly. Some are things I picked up from my dance instructors in high school and some are what I have been learning in my dance major. All are meant to be fun and freeing! So, take a look, see what calls to you. Try a few out. Replenish your motivation to dance! Refill your creative wells!
First some tips and tricks:
Watch dance:
A lot. We live in an age where we can watch dance for free on platforms like Instagram and YouTube. Take advantage of that! Watch all sorts of dance in all sorts of styles. Let yourself be inspired by them! Watch them for enjoyment, but also for learning. When writing, we talk about how if you want to get better at writing, you have to read. A lot. I think that can be applied to dancing as well. Consume exorbitant amounts of dance media. Learn by osmosis. What did you like about that last dance you watched? Is there a way to incorporate that into your own dancing? Let it motivate you to become a better dancer! And above all, let it be enjoyable!
Dance to a different type of music:
I have been having a lot of fun with this one lately. Of course, this wouldn’t really work in a class you are taking, but if you are dancing on your own it’s a fun way to shake things up. Who says you have to do a ballet class to classical music? I did the most epic waltz ever to Total Eclipse of the Heart, and not to toot my own horn, but it was glorious. Throw some rap into your contemporary improv. Try something more lyrical sounding for hip hop or breaking. Does the music still work? Is it causing you to move in different ways? All dance styles are intricately connected to a corresponding music style, but sometimes changing the music is a good way to rekindle some passion. Anything you can do that will make your typical routine different might just be the thing that helps you remember why you love to dance. Don’t allow yourself to stagnate in your dancing. Routine is important, but so is being dynamic. So is being spontaneous.
Try a new style:
This one can be tricky, especially for people who take a lot of different styles of dance. I challenge you though to look for a dance form that you know very little about and use YouTube to check out a few tutorials. You might find that you enjoy it, and you can incorporate it into your individual style for whatever your primary dance form is. For example, these past few months I have been watching a lot of lindy hop videos and learning a few moves that I can dance on my own without a partner (think Charleston/swing sort of moves). It has been a lot of fun!
Look outside of dance:
Maybe dancing isn’t doing it for you right now. That is alright. As is the case with any art, there will be times when it feels like the easiest thing in the world and times when it is a struggle to get yourself to practice. Sometimes, looking outside the field of dance can help you be inspired to dance more. Paint a mini watercolor. Do some coloring pages or a sketch. Read a book. Listen to music. Allow yourself to rest and recuperate. Give yourself time. While there is a lot we can do to surpass a creative block, sometimes, all you need is some self-care. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is take a break, knowing that when you come back, you will be inspired and healthy again.
Alright, now that we have looked outside ourselves for our raw, uncut diamonds of inspiration, it’s time to excavate them. Here are some fun activities you can channel your inspiration into. I have broken down the activities into two categories: Improvisation and Choreography. Sometimes, taking a break from technique and doing some other fun dance prompts is just the thing to get you back into your creative groove and fill that well!
Improv prompts and ideas:
Prompts can range anywhere from quality of movement to giving yourself confines to work in. Here are a few that I enjoy:
Have someone else pick your music. Sometimes, you can get bogged down by your own tastes and interests. Have a friend send you a song. Ask a family member for a suggestion. And stick with it, even if it isn’t your cup of tea. This will pull you out of your comfort zone and generate new movement, thus refilling your creative well.
Pick a part of your body. Any part. You are not allowed to move that part. Now improv.
Pick another part of your body. That body part is now the initiation point behind all your movement. Feel free to try with several different body parts!
Randomly pick an animal and an adjective. You must embody this animal and adjective in your improv.
Pick four textures. Switch between embodying these textures while you improv.
Look around your dancing space. What does it look like? What objects are in your space? What is the shape of your space? Are there any windows? Doors? Kitchen appliances? As you improv, keep an eye on the space around you and try to embody what you are seeing. Also, feel free to use the space for more than just inspiration. If there is a couch, lie on it! If there is an open wall, lean against it! There are so many ways we can use our at home spaces to dance. I challenge you to think about it less as a confinement and more as an opportunity for new types of movement.
Choose an area or object in your space. It could be a couch, a corner, a water bottle, anything! While you improv, make your way to this object or area. All you want in the world is to get to that object/area, but things keep getting in the way. Try to resolve this problem by the end of your improv.
Choreography prompts and activities:
A lot of these are prompts and activities that I picked up from classes that I have taken for my dance major that I had a lot of fun doing. They are great ways to generate movement ideas, so hopefully they inspire you to do some more dancing.
Playing with space:
What is something that you can do in your at home dance space that you can’t do at the studio? What movements, if you were to take them out of your at-home space, would no longer work or no longer make sense? I think we can get stagnant when we dance in one small space for too long, so try something new in it. Do you have a porch or a backyard? Patio? Stairs? What kinds of movement can you do there that you cannot do in your at home dance space or your studio? Shake things up a bit. Find a new space to dance and see if it sparks your creativity.
Love Solos:
This was one of my favorite projects I did for my choreography class. It requires the use of a partner, so find a dance friend and meet up (socially distanced or over zoom of course). Each partner picks three to four songs that all sound very different. The goal is to generate a variety of movement qualities. Then, watch your partner improv to these songs and get a feeling for the way they like to move. After that, take a few minutes to create a short piece of choreography for your partner, a solo tailored specifically for them. Teach each other the solos you both created and have fun watching each other dance!
Playing with Music:
There are so many different ways to play with music while you dance. So. Many. Ways. Here is one that can be fun to work with. Once again, this activity works best if you have a friend to do it with. Start by listening to a random piece of music, preferably one that you have never heard before. Listen to it once, then set it aside. You will not need it again. Think about this music. What did it make you see in your mind’s eye? How did it make you feel? How did it make you want to move? Sometimes, it can help to generate a short narrative to go with it. For example, I did this exercise once and the song I listened to made me think of driving at night after it had rained, the pavement glistening in the glow of the streetlights. After you have figured something out, make a short phrase of choreography to go with the mood/feeling/narrative you picked up from the music, but without listening to the original music. It doesn’t have to be more than a couple eight counts. Perform your dance for your partner, without any music. Then, your partner will meticulously dig through their own music and find something that they think matches the choreography. Then dance your choreography one more time with the music your partner picked out. Switch roles.
These activities aren’t meant to add stress to your life. They aren’t meant to be one more assignment you have to complete or one more job you have to finish or one more exercise you have to do. They’re purely meant to be fun, because that is one of the reasons we dance, right? We dance because we love it. Otherwise, why would we put ourselves through the grueling process of creating art?
So, try some of these tricks and activities out, not because you need them, not because you cannot become a better dancer without them, but because they are fun! Because you love to dance.
Fun and enjoyment are at the heart of inspiration. You are inspired because you like something, or because you want to make something better. You are inspired because you are passionate. So next time you have a creative block, or you can’t summon the resolve to go to dance class, or you can’t seem to motivate yourself to dance on your own, think about what you love about dance. Think about why you are passionate about it. Then do what you love and what you are passionate about. Maybe that’s improv. Maybe that choreography. Maybe that’s working on a specific technical move. Whatever it is, do it because you love it. Refill the creative well because you intend to excavate.