Musical Theater Bringing Out Creativity in Kids
Musical theater is a form of storytelling that provides kids with a chance to express themselves without the fear of being judged. Things like singing, dancing, and acting teach kids how to be expressive and allow them to explore all the types of arts they love.
Nurturing creative expressions in your kids is extremely important for their mental, emotional, and spiritual development. Creative kids think differently and come up with out-of-the-box solutions to problems. Plus, studies suggest that creative people are good at adapting to unprecedented situations. What's more, creative experiences help children cope with their feelings and channel their energies in a healthy way.
That said, creativity is cultivated in a space that is fun to be a part of—a place where ideas and experiments are encouraged and cherished. One great place to nurture creativity in children is musical theater.
Musical theater combines singing, acting, and dancing to become a catch-all performing art. It is a comprehensive art form that injects a full dose of creativity in children. In addition, it helps kids develop their rhythm, coordination, and storytelling skills.
Musical theater promotes divergent thinking. Image by www.freepik.com
But what makes theatrical performance a powerful activity to flourish creativity in kids? Let's have a look!
How Musical Theater Promotes Creativity in Children
Musical theater allows children to explore different characters, both onstage and offstage, and have fun with sound effects and props. It will enable them to explore multiple aspects of art, such as song lyrics, dialogues, singing, and dancing. They learn to be in the spotlight and express their emotions more realistically.
When kids participate in musical theater, they can focus on their creativity through music, movement, and artistry. This allows kids to learn valuable skills like vocal technique and dance choreography that will help them later in life when auditioning for school plays or other extracurricular activities. Plus, many musicals include an educational message or moral of the story that helps children understand important lessons early in life.
Let's explore more ways musical theater brings out creativity in kids.
Music and Songs Make Children More Creative
Music promotes divergent thinking.
Divergent thinking is a brain function that involves exploring multiple unique ideas or solutions. In other words, divergent thinking trains the brain to get creative and work in a free-flowing or non-linear manner.
A study published in the journal Plos One explored the impact of music on the human brain. Participants were given creative problems to either solve in silence (control group) or while listening to musical pieces. When their performances were compared, it was realized that those who listened to happy music scored higher on divergent thinking.
Sure, happy music could make your kids creative. But what happens when a melody combines lyrics to create a song? Well, a musical is incomplete without singing. In fact, a typically theatrical performance features songs to tell stories or express emotions.
Let's understand what makes singing a creative activity.
A singer's instrument, the vocal cords, is contained within a singer's body, unlike other instruments, which are exposed. Due to this, a singer visualizes their voice and thinks creatively to generate the desired musical sounds. Besides, feeling the lyrics and channeling those emotions in vocals requires a great deal of creative thinking.
Theatrical plays encourage kids to experiment with their emotions, feel the process, and express themselves.
Acting, Spoken Dialogues, and Creativity
Acting is an integral part of a musical, if not the cornerstone.
Suppose we ask two different actors to deliver the same dialogues under the same settings. We would have two substantially different outcomes, right? The acting style could differ in terms of intonation, gestures, or expressions.
That is precisely what makes the drama interesting; there is no fixed way to deliver a performance.
Theatrical plays encourage kids to experiment with their emotions, feel the process, and uniquely express themselves. The combination of improvisation, spontaneity, and imagination results in creative outcomes.
Similarly, it takes no less creativity to write and deliver dialogues. To precisely synchronize the mental state of a character with words, kids require imagination and inventiveness. Writing or delivering dialogues helps familiarize themselves with the analogy, allegory, or poetic expressions.
Musical theater teaches kids to creatively encapsulate a play's mood in dialogues. Apart from exploring creative ways to deliver dialogues, they also begin to understand the depth of words. This helps hone their linguistic abilities, making them more creative at composing complex expressions later on.
On top of all these, musical theater encourages children to manage their emotions and see things from their character's perspectives. This leads them to develop values like empathy and tolerance.
How Dancing Promotes Creativity in Kids
Just like writing, singing, acting, and painting, dance is yet another medium for creative self-expression. It helps you attune to your feelings and express your emotions in the form of choreographed or improvised order of movements.
Studies suggest that dance is a powerful performing art that impacts a range of brain functions. Not only does it support sensory, motor, cognitive, and emotional functions of the brain, but it also improves creative behavior.
What happens when a kid dances to a musical rhythm? The brain processes the beat, a coherent cognitive activity stirs up, and a spontaneous dance step follows suit.
With consistent practice, kids learn to let their bodies flow to the musical rhythm. As a result, they trust their muscle memory to handle the mechanics of dancing, creating new neural pathways and enhancing creative thinking.
There's another indirect way dance nurtures creativity.
According to research, people who exercise regularly tend to have higher creativity levels than their sedentary counterparts. Since dance is a form of exercise, it improves brain function in kids, helping them become more creative.
Enroll Your Kids in the Summer Program at Stage Music Center in Acton MA
Want to help your kids become more creative through art, music, acting, choreography, dancing, and more? Get them registered for our summer musical theater program and let their creativity spark!
Want more information? Contact us now.
Read more insightful posts on our blog:
The Oldest Musical Instrument in Use to This Day (Flute - Fun Facts)
Four Magical Elements of Musical Theater (Songs, Spoken Dialogue, Acting, and Dance)