Dramatic thinking: identifying and owning our creative process

The processes and pedagogies for promoting creativity and creative thinking are often described as problem-based and inquiry learning. ‘Generic’ design processes such as ‘design thinking’ are also proposed as being somehow common to creative process. However, most of these models arose from graphic design and visual arts traditions, so do these models actually take account of the specific strengths and opportunities for cultivating creativity through drama? What does it mean to engage in a creative process as a dramatist or a dramatic pedagogue? How does a consideration of dramatic form and process shape experience and impact on the visioning and imagining processes? This paper investigates the concerns and considerations of the creative thinking/doing process in drama with reference to examples of relevance from the situating of our conference in the nation’s capital and on a year of great significance for our First Nations people.