Intellect and Creativity

At The University of North Carolina School of the Arts, creativity is key. Without a sense of creativity, it would be more than just difficult to get through this school, and in addition to that, it's probably not the place for you. From the school of Drama, to Dance, to Design and Production, every field at this school practically requires creativity. For acting one needs to be able to preform improvisation and think outside the box. For dance, one can only take what the teacher is saying to a certain extent, but if there isn't a sense of their own flow and style, then what makes it special. Then you have Design and Production, and that is something where you really have to think outside the box, from designing a costume for a show about cannibalism, to lighting a stage with just the right moodiness for the scene of a death. Creativity is KEY at this school.

In addition to that, intellect is very important here as well. An artist has to be able to discuss their design decision and why they chose to convey it that way, and use intellect to support their creativity. That's why these two mix so well together. For example, in Color and Design, the teacher will tell us to be creative with a project and really think like an artist. But she always stresses not to just do things mindlessly and call it art, you have to put intellectual thought into your design decisions. Then when you go to present it, she will challenge you and ask why you picked that certain color, or twisted the wire in that type of curve. They both must coexist to really create great papers, art, dance pieces, blog entrees, and everything else in between at UNCSA.

"Engage in creative work intelligently, and engage in intellectual work creatively" -Bob King. This quote was pulled from Media Studios: A Field Guide. It really describes and summarizes this school, and mixing these two properties together. It shows it's not enough to just create art without intellectual though, and it's not enough to write a paper without using creativity to make it unique, your own and most importantly, engaging.

Writing creativity, and with your own style is very important, especially at School of the Arts. Academics at any other school they would want a student to write very linearly, and pointA, pointB, etcetera... at this school one can write how they want to and more free and CREATIVELY. But, it should not just random and artistically written without INTELLECTUAL thought behind it. This is a quote from Meeting Macomber, REMIXING intellect and creativity, wrote by Bob King; "I'm also talking with you creatively now, making connections between disparate points, not between sequential points... In some places it is more like connecting pointA to pointQ rather than connecting pointA to pointB, and that's okay." This relates to the previous statement I made about things not having to be completely linear thoughts, in fact, it’s best not to in many cases. These two things mix beautifully together and both help add interest to one another.