The Stages of Creativity: A Teen’s Exploration in the Arts | Liv Mazerolle
In 1957, Noam Chomsky proposed his theory of Universal Grammar. The theory states that all humans are born with an innate understanding of language with all its structures and rules. Is it possible then, that we are also born with an innate creativity? As Chomsky’s Universal Grammar teaches us, language is an instinct as natural to the human experience as our instincts for hunger and thirst; I propose that creativity is at least as naturally and as complexly human as language is. After all, art is our secondary means of communication after language, and one might even argue that it is primary seeing as it connects us across cultures in a way language cannot.
“Creativity cannot be taught because it doesn’t need to be—it’s already in us, but it does take the right environment to foster it. ”
As I am of the mind that language and creativity are inextricably linked, I believe that their development in us as humans ought to be discussed in conjunction with each other. Writing this, I’ve employed language as a means of communicating an idea. For my part, I’ve also had experience communicating my ideas through performing arts, though for the rest of humankind, the arts has been a key mode of communication for millennia, whether said arts be performative visual, or otherwise. Of course, I wasn’t born speaking in full sentences—and certainly not writing them—nor was I born dancing or acting, but speak, write, dance, and act I do, and getting to this point has been the fun part.
Photo by Carolyn Snow Devito
I was born into a wonderfully creative home in Moncton, New Brunswick, eighteen years ago, and I’ve had the great fortune of having my creative instinct fostered in many ways ever since. My first interaction with the creative world was at a dance school in Moncton where I discovered that finding a creative outlet was my first step to creative growth.
Photo by Lexie Forsythe
Later, as a teenager, I tried out for my school’s improv team, which was the next step in the nurturing of my creativity. Improv taught me a valuable lesson in self-confidence. The confidence I gained from finding I could act crazy in front of an auditorium full of my peers inspired me to audition for the school play that year. Once again, my creativity grew under the care of a supportive community of my fellow cast-mates. It showed me that growing my creativity had a lot to do with finding my people and communicating my ideas with like-minded individuals.
These experiences in the performing arts acted as stages of development for my creativity. I had to find my creative outlet before I could find my confidence, and I had to find my confidence before I could find my community. Similarly, in the development of our mother tongue, we babble before we make words, and we must learn to make words before we can make sentences. In each case, once we have found these things or surpassed these stages, we are able to communicate.
Though I use my own case as an example because it's the one I know best, this trajectory of growth looks different for every creative person. Mine happened to begin early in my childhood and tended to occur within the performing arts. For another, it may begin well into adulthood and there’s certainly more in the wide world of art to explore beyond dancing and acting.
Photo by Lexie Forsythe
And how pleased I am to keep exploring! The most exciting thing about having had my innate instincts for both language and creativity nurtured throughout my childhood is that I still have my adulthood ahead of me to continue growing. I’ve recently discovered a passion for writing, and, following the template I’ve made for myself from Chomsky’s theory on language and my own on creativity, I find this a poetic place to be at the end of my childhood.
Creativity cannot be taught because it doesn’t need to be—it’s already in us, but it does take the right environment to foster it. Sometimes it takes writing something like this, with language we were born with to understand and talents we were born with to explore, to begin to understand our own creativity; how do you foster yours?
@liv_mazerolle
Liv Mazerolle is a young New Brunswicker and a recent graduate of Riverview High School. She is currently studying at the University of King’s College in Nova Scotia and intends to continue developing her creativity and hopes to be a lifelong learner of the arts, literature, and history.
