Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration
Published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates in 2003
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A jazz quartet. The cast of a stage play. A work team, a classroom discussion, seminar, or a family planning a summer vacation. In all of these groups, creativity and collaboration are essential. And perhaps the most creative collaborating groups are music and theater ensembles. Group Creativity draws on studies of performing ensembles to provide insights into all group creativity.
In collaborating groups, the group becomes more than the sum of its parts, as creativity emerges from a dynamic exchange between the participants. The author takes a novel approach, focusing on the symbolic interactional process of collaborative communication. Group Creativity analyzes how each action functions in the ongoing flow of the performance, and how it relates to the context that emerges during the performance. The author explores participants' close listening and sensitivity, the submerging of each ego in the group dynamic, and the ways that people work together to create something better than any single person could create alone.
Group Creativity is essential reading for anyone interested in collaboration and creativity.