Seeing the ‘choreographic mind’: Three analytic lenses developed to probe and notate creative thinking in dance

This chapter seeks to use analytic lenses to help frame the questions and enable conversation amongst science and arts practitioners. Scholars and scientists working in a wide range of disciplines have debated issues associated with creative thinking from numerous perspectives. The chapter summarises and exemplifies the nature, uses and potential value of various lenses. The first lens, Process Model, was designed to capture the constituent activities of making and their time course. The second lens, Bridging Model, highlighted the representations and ideational processes that underpin creative design. The third lens, Process and Concept Tracking, was developed as a methodology to enable us to probe deeper into the creative thinking, in situ, during development and across the making, in study of works by one prominent choreographer. Wayne McGregor is a London-based contemporary choreographer whose working methods have drawn inspiration from dance artists such as Merce Cunningham, Trisha Brown and William Forsythe.