ABSTRACT
In psychology and cognitive science, researchers have described and investigated creativity as a special case of human problem solving over a long period. Studies of insight problem-solving and anecdotal records of prominent artists suggest the importance of a relaxation and reorganization of their ‘internal constraints’, which in this case refers to the framework of understanding the problem in generating their ideas for artworks. However, these studies have not identified factors that facilitate this process of reorganization. This chapter suggests two candidate factors by investigating the creative processes of expert break dancers from their evaluations of ideas, descriptions of ideas and discoveries, and movements. The first factor is the embodiment of ideas. Dancers could expand their images and reorganize their internal constraints by expressing images as external representations and perceiving them through multiple senses (e.g., visual, auditory, and somatic senses). The second factor is interaction with others. Dancers reorganized their constraints by perceiving and interpreting others’ expressions and frameworks and including them in their own expressions. We also suggest educational applications to facilitate students’ creativity in their art activities based on this approach.
