2.2 The seeds of creativity
The creation of the HumanTree was a complex process of combining and growing all those seeds, musical and non-musical, into a performance that may be a representation of a real forest. The creativity worked on many levels, including the story plot of the HumanTree with its purpose and meanings that consequently influenced the creation of the music as well as the visuals. I like to compare creativity with nature, understanding it as a complex phenomenon that emerges from the interactions of the system’s part and requires ‘explanations at multiple levels’ to understand it (Sawyer, 2006, p. 3016). Creativity can be explained, and therefore it can be developed. Even though a creative insight may seem to be mysterious, it comes from hard work and constant curiosity, which we may or may not be conscious of. Although creativity is the fruit of hard work, the conditions for the seed to grow and combine into that specific forest have to be favorable and are sometimes difficult to predict.
In my opinion, collaboration is essential in any creation. We may enjoy a forest walk for its greenery and pure air, but beyond our eyes and lungs, there is a complex system of cooperation and communication that keeps another level of beauty. Similarly in music, any creation will be of a higher quality if beyond all those sounds you can hear a cooperation that communicates greater meanings (Thomson, 2013) Therefore, a journey towards the discovery of my inner voice could not have happened without this collaborative project as it can only be achieved by and with many interactions with many others. The creation of the HumanTree becomes an example of true collaborative thought as ‘we cannot develop an understanding of one without the other’ (MacDonald et al., 2003, p. 10). These complex processes are leading creativity to move naturally towards a ‘collaborative group enterprise’ allowing us to work together more successfully (Sawyer, 2006, p. 306). This is the essence of the studies in GLOMAS, ‘sharpening our ability to facilitate effective intercultural collaborations and creative processes’ (Thomson, 2013, p.28). In the path of forging and finding my artistic identity I have learnt from a huge diversity of other artistic collaborative projects that resonated within me in different ways. From those I got inspiration to imagine and create new insights.
During the field trip to Nepal, and by meeting people from different cultures, I learned to improvise and communicate on another level than I was used to. I experienced that the planning I had in mind was not always working in this different culture, and therefore I had to flow with the opportunities that the present moment was bringing to me. Meditation is a practise of concentration that was helpful to develop an awareness of the present moment while observing every thought, feeling, and sensation that passes through the mind without judging it. As Newton (2015) mentions ‘when attention is distracted by thoughts or sensations, it is returned to the present through nonjudgmental recognition and typically through utilizing the breath as a mode of concentration’ (p. 172). Although calming the amount of playful thoughts might sound contradictory for a creative mind, this practice is supporting a relaxed and lucid, yet alert and responsive state that supports the creative process (Newton, 2015). In order to reach this state, intuitive thinking is needed to arise and has to be balanced with the intellectual. Simultaneously, by developing awareness of the body signs one can reach intuition and spontaneity in a needed connection of body and mind.
A variety of concentration tasks such as warm-up activities, games or meditations are essential to prepare your voice, body and awareness (Renshaw, 2011, p. 94) while bringing enjoyment and interacting in a social setting. From my experience, meditative practises could happen any time, any place, just inside your mind. A mediation could be a walk in the forest, or a musical practise itself. The benefits from meditation are as well inherent in musical practises as Newton (2015) mentions, ‘creating music brings pleasure and a sense of harmony by reducing constant thought-chatter’ (p. 179). In my experience, learning music is a mindful practise itself, as you are totally focusing on the sounds of the interaction but at the same time it has to be balanced with a control of your thoughts and judgmental thinking. The words from the Budhist monk Mingyur Rinpoche (2007) have been present as seeds of the project and I find them essential too for this creative process:
Wherever we are, whatever we do, all we need to do is recognize our thoughts, feelings, and perceptions as something natural. Neither rejecting or accepting, we simply acknowledge the experience and let it pass (p. 45).
Moreover I understood that meditation and spontaneity leads to greater communication, improvisation and collaboration. And therefore contributes to your creativity. In a live performance, such as the HumanTree, the creativity is not only present during the processes of collaboration but remains throughout the performance involving improvisation and communication between the artists and the audience (Sawyer, 2006). Thus, making the performance an active creative platform.
One time during my trip in Nepal I was feeling very ill because of the bad pollution in the capital. That day, on a journey from Kathmandu to the Khasur village, fears about my health started growing until the point where some ideas emerged to cope with this challenging moment. Creativity arose from this bad situation. A punishment received in primary school where I had to copy a few sentences 100 times, came to my mind. Then, a creativity insight arose from this memory, and instead of copying a negative sentence, I copied on a paper some calming words that helped healing me while supporting my inner strength. These seeds too are present in the HumanTree and are therefore essential because they demonstrate the benefits of creativity beyond the music outcome.
This following video (Figure 3.1) shows my walking towards the village (one hour up), escaping from the pollution and connecting again with nature and with the benefits that the walking exercise produces in your own body to reach your destination. The video follows with the welcoming from the old women who were inviting me to join a ritual that was happening in that precise moment. The communication and improvisation arising from these interactions is therefore connected with creativity.
As you can hear in the second next video (Figure 3.2) I am practising a mudra (gesture made with the fingers) that the Budhist Lamas taught me during the ritual. Apart from this hand position I was also transcribing some rhythms that later on will appear in the process of this creation. Without documenting and practising, these seeds would not have been watered and therefore creativity would not have aroused from their combination. This unexpected participation in the ritual has been a big inspiration for the HumanTree. It made me remember how important freedom and spontaneity are together with practise and perseverance for a creation to happen. Seeds that you never know from where they are coming, similarly as a bird throwing aleatory a seed in a piece of land.