Creative Flow in Dance: Consensual Assessment of Creative Outcomes of Dance Group Improvisation

Group flow refers to peak experience when a group is performing at its highest level of abilities. This study examined the relationship between the group flow experience of an improvising group of contemporary dancers and their creative outcomes evaluated by the consensual assessment method (CAT). The dataset consists of the data and analysis used in the "Creative Flow in Dance: Consensual Assessment of Creative Outcomes of Dance Group Improvisation (in press)." First, eight groups of four dancers were recruited to perform improvised dance scores for video recordings. The low and high-flow improvisations videoclips were selected based on dancers’ reports in the video-stimulated recall method, Flow (Łucznik, May, 2021). Subsequently, these videoclips were rated by 77 experts and 126 nonexperts using CAT on five dimensions: aesthetic appeal, technique demands, meaningfulness, coherence /collaboration of the group, and creativity. Experts rated high-flow improvisations as more creative than the low-flow ones. In comparison, nonexperts’ ratings of high and low-flow improvisation did not differ, although the reliability measures of nonexperts creativity judgments were noticeably lower than in the expert group. Regardless of expertise, creativity judgments were significantly related to all other CAT factors: aesthetic appeal, technique, meaningfulness and coherence of improvisation. The results provide evidence that group flow leads to higher creativity. Moreover, they suggest that subjective judgments of creativity of performance arts cannot be easily separated from judgments of their technical level, aesthetic appeal, meaningfulness or coherence of the group.

群体心流（Group flow）指群体发挥最高能力水平时的巅峰体验。本研究探讨了当代舞者即兴表演群体的群体心流体验与通过共识评估法（Consensual Assessment Method，CAT）评估的创作成果之间的关联。本数据集包含发表于《舞蹈中的创作心流：舞蹈团体即兴创作成果的共识评估》（待出版）一文所用的数据与分析内容。首先，研究招募8组每组4名舞者，录制其即兴舞蹈表演片段。随后基于舞者在视频刺激回忆法（Łucznik, May, 2021）中的报告，筛选出低心流与高心流即兴表演的视频片段。接着，由77名专家与126名非专家通过CAT从5个维度对这些视频片段进行评分：审美吸引力、技术复杂度、内涵意义、团队协作与连贯性，以及创造性。结果显示，专家将高心流即兴表演评为比低心流即兴表演更具创造性。相较而言，非专家对高、低心流即兴表演的创造性评分并无显著差异，尽管非专家创造性判断的信度指标显著低于专家组。无论是否具备专业背景，创造性评分均与其余所有CAT维度评分显著相关：审美吸引力、技术水平、内涵意义以及即兴表演的团队连贯性。研究结果证实，群体心流能够带来更高水平的创造性。此外，结果还表明，表演艺术创造性的主观判断难以与技术水平、审美吸引力、内涵意义或团队连贯性的判断相剥离。