Creative communities?

We recently held a performing arts evening. Not just any old performing arts evening, mind you, as members of our kura community came together to support one of our many talented students Nadia who is fundraising to support her trip to the Globe Theatre, London. Nadia was selected for the Aotearoa New Zealand team of students to visit and perform at The Globe, out of the University of Otago Sheila Winn Shakespeare festival. A wonderful acknowledgement of tremendous talent.

Staff, students, and even our wonderful  ex-Head Student Shardey,  got up in front of several hundred staff, students, and whānau, and 'strutted their stuff'. From song to instrumental performance to poetry (both the Bard, and original poetry from several staff), a group of people took a risk, put themselves up there, out there, in support of one of our own. We have watched Nadia's talent grow as it has been nurtured by our staff, and supported by Nadia's wonderful peers.

It seemed to me that the evening was significant on a number of levels.

This outpouring of support for one of our own was huge, and very usual, very typical, for an awesome community. Community members rally to the cause whatever it might be, and Nadia's cause, her talent,  appear to have captured their imagination and their aroha. Nadia is 'one of ours'.

At a deeper level I am wondering if we gained a wee insight, a wee glimpse, into the heart of a 'creative community'?  Which begs the question about what makes for a creative community? I did a bit of a search, looking for a definition, and for some idea of the characteristics of a 'creative community'. The references tended to be focussed purely on the creative arts. That in itself is not a bad thing, but of course within our kura we see creativity as going beyond the traditional creative arts, and permeating everything about who and what we are, and what we do.

Here was one definition I found for a 'creative community'.

Creative communities come in all shapes and sizes and offer all sorts of benefits; from practical advice and skill-sharing to emotional support. Even the most independent of makers can’t turn their aspirations into reality on their own - creatives need creatives.

https://91magazine.co.uk/blog/2019/8/9/how-to-build-a-creative-community

'Creatives need creatives';.. interesting, creatives 'feed off each others' ideas and inspiration'. When I think about the visual arts, I see teachers supporting learners to choose an artist role model and work through a process that begins with that role model's work. Creatives feeding off the work of other creatives. In my own poetry writing I am inspired by the free verse poetry of others. Writers like Bukowski come to mind. Is there really much that is 'new under the sun'?

I also found this:

What is a creative community?

A creative community describes a group of people who come together around a shared challenge or theme to create, act and share, or a concentration of creatives operating in a shared locale.

Creative communities operate on relationships of trust, shared goals and objectives and generate spill-over benefits for people and communities. By identifying, responding to, and articulating their own needs, creative communities use partnership working to open up opportunity. They co-design and co-deliver interventions, and challenge received ways of thinking about some of the most significant challenges facing society today.

https://www.ukri.org/blog/creative-communities-create-act-share/

That resonated on several levels too... note the reference to 'create .... and share', which possibly by pure coincidence connected in my head with our 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy. I also interpret it to mean that the act of creation is given meaning through the act of sharing with others. We are certainly largely a gregarious species, we thrive on social contact and sharing, don't we? I discover increasing connections to our Manaiakalani kaupapa.

This is an in credibly superficial look at the question of learning communities, but it did strike me that the acts of creation and sharing were very much to the fore in our fundraising performance evening. I also saw lots of risk taking from a wide range of people, from accomplished performers to beginners, all happy to share their journey so far with a wide audience. Back in 2016 we identified risk taking as one of the essential components necessary for creativity to thrive, and accordingly built it into our strategic plan as one of our three areas of strategic intent.

In previous posts I have also identified components such as deep subject knowledge, cultural and personal connection, and a relentless focus on creativity, all as necessary components, or perhaps necessary pre-conditions, for creativity to thrive. For Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka, these seem to be essential pre-conditions if we are to creep that bit closer to our aspiration, our vision, as 'he puna auaha, a centre of creative excellence'.

I shouldn't try to over think this though. The evening quite simply put the spotlight on an amazing community, a community that values its members, that wraps its arms around its members, in a way which other communities may not. And the support form business sponsors with prizes for the raffles for the evening was amazing.. thank you thank you thank you... We take all of this for granted at our peril.

Go Nadia, we are very proud of you!!! #manahoromaka