Creativity in Motion: Examining the Creative Potential System and Enriched Movement Activities as a Way to Ignite It

Abstract

In a global and highly competitive world, the importance of creativity is increasing as it supports adaptability, health, and actualization. Yet, because most research focuses on what it takes to produce creative artifacts, interventions supporting growth in creative potential remains underexplored. To address this limitation, the first goal of this paper is to review the creativity science literature to identify the elements that underpin the realization of an individual’s creative potential. The summary of the literature is presented using a framework which highlights the interactions between environmental elements (i.e., cultural values, social interactions, and material world) and actors’ elements (i.e., affective attributes and states, cognitive skills, and physical expression). Using a systemic perspective, the framework illustrates ‘what’ creativity enhancement interventions should aim for, to facilitate the emergence of creative actions. Given the current lack of holistic, embodied, and interactive evidence-based interventions to nurture the creative potential elements identified, the second part of this review builds on movement sciences literature and physical literacy conceptualization to suggest that enriched movement activities are promising avenues to explore. Specifically, following non-linear pedagogy approaches, an intervention called movement improvisation is introduced. Ecological dynamics principles are used to explain how improvising with movement in a risk-friendly environment can lead to cognitive, affective, social, and cultural repertoire expansion. To interrogate this argument further, the review concludes with possible solutions to withstand research challenges and raises future study questions. Overall, combining creativity and movement sciences in this review demonstrates the potential for well-designed movement interventions to ignite creative potential for individuals and overcome the tendency to remain anchored in a state of inertia.

Giving Ideas Some Legs or Legs Some Ideas? Children’s Motor Creativity Is Enhanced by Physical Activity Enrichment: Direct and Mediated Paths

“…This limited evidence for an involvement of ‘cool’ executive functions calls for research that assesses the role of ‘hot’ executive functions with affective aspects as those related to risk taking in decision making ( Zelazo and Carlson, 2012 ). Cognitive functions that contribute to motion with e-motion may better reflect the motivational salience of the motor creativity context ( Rudd et al, 2020 ) and are inherent in a recent overarching model of how enriched PA may enhance the creative potential ( Richard et al, 2021 ). The need to address the salience of the context and the physical, cognitive, emotional and social facets of PA enrichment is emerging in movement sciences also in the first systematic attempt to identify contextualized mechanisms acting in the physical activity-cognition relation ( Pesce et al, 2021b ).…”

Motor Creativity and Self-Efficacy in Young Gymnasts: Expertise Differences

“…In conclusion, as unfortunately rigid linear environment still prevails in the motor e sport domain (Santos et al, 2016), it could be very interesting to evaluate the effects of a creative gymnastics' intervention in line with the assumption that enriched physical activity may enhance the creative potential (Richard, Holder, & Cairney, 2021).…”

“…In this regard, the Amusement Park Theory (APT) model by Baer and Kaufman model (2005) starts from general requirements for all creative achievements and moves thorough progressively more specific levels: general thematic areas (e.g., hands-on creativity), domains (e.g., motor or bodily-kinaesthetic creativity) and micro-domains or specific tasks (e.g., gross-motor or fine-motor tasks). In the last decade, creativity in motion or motor creativity has received a meaningful attention with a flourishing of research starting from a) the role of the body and action in individual development, particularly in cognitive and affective acquisitions and in changes through the life span (Adolph & Hoch, 2019;Marmeleira & Duarte Santos, 2019) and b) the holistic embodied conceptualization of creativity (Orth et al 2017;Richard, Holder, & Cairney, 2021) where «the mind is not solely located in the brain but also involves the body and the body's situation in the environment» (Malinin, 2019, p. 2). Thus, the intertwined connections between the body, the mind, and the environment becomes critical in developing of enhancement creativity interventions.…”

“…As consequence, according to an ecological-dynamic approach (Davids, Handford, & Williams 1994;Chow et al, 2020), recent studies suggest relevance of using enriched movement activities to realize an individual's creative potential (Scibinetti, 2019;Richard, Holder, & Cairney, 2021;Tocci et al, 2022). Particularly in early childhood education, movement-based creativity programs have been employed to foster not so much motor creativity per se, but creative behavior in the embodied and kinesthetic way that characterizes discovery learning and cognitive development in children (Grammatikopoulos, Gregoriadis, & Zachopoulou, 2012).…”

From Imaginative Experiments to Inventive Performances: On the Role of Creativity in the Developmental Experiences of Professional Ice Hockey Players

“…To bring together player, process, context, and outcomes, there is a need for in-depth research on sport participants' lived experiences of creative activities. Hence, sport researchers need to embrace the complexity of creativity by moving away from focusing on testable relationships and studying individual elements in isolation (Richard et al, 2021).…”