Interdisciplinary Arts

Whatever field a person works in or prepares for, the ability to collaborate and to fuse ideas from different areas tends to matter. This textbook is written for students who want to build that ability by learning how concepts from the arts can be applied to any pursuit. Drawing on theatre, dance, and the visual arts, which are related but distinct practices, it encourages inventive thinking and sound problem solving.

The authors walk readers through the creative process with exercises, journal prompts, and other tools for producing original work built on these concepts. Strategies and vocabulary from several artistic fields are used to sharpen students as makers, problem solvers, and communicators. The book also profiles artists from history and includes case studies of former students whose projects show what is possible.

Along the way, readers take up questions such as whether one can move past a first answer to reach a better one, how a person can train to be more creative, how to explain the way arts study shapes decisions in other fields, and how artistic training can support a job search in a chosen career. The aim is for students to discover their own expressive abilities and carry them into every part of their lives.

The process moves through four stages: a creative thumbnail sketch that serves as a rough draft or outline of a project, a feedback phase for weighing one's own ideas against those of others, a presentation phase for showing the finished work, and a reflection phase for considering why the work was made, what it means, and what was learned. Activities, journal prompts, editable worksheets, and extra resources are available through HK Propel, and a code for access comes with all new print copies. Readers finish with a stronger grasp of cross-disciplinary thinking, confidence in their creative capacity, and an understanding of how the body, the mind, and the inner self are connected.