Creativity and Interdisciplinary Linkages: the Visual and Performing Arts and Other Disciplines

Abstract

Creativity has been linked to various contexts and meanings in the cultural, political, economic, religious, and educational milieu. Though most of the early writers attributed the concept of creativity to the arts such as literature, contemporary views of the term creativity literally cuts across all disciplines. A variety of definitions that have been given to the term may be summarized as "the ability to generate innovative ideas and to manifest such ideas from thought into a concrete reality.” The foregoing definition indicates the importance of creativity as an essential aspect of innovation and invention and hence, underscores the importance of creativity, not only in the arts like literature but also in many other professions such as teaching, engineering, medicine, agriculture, law, architecture, sports and games, economics, technology, political science among others areas. This forms the basis of this paper as we seek to elucidate on the interdisciplinary links between the visual and performing arts with other disciplines.