Group Creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration

A jazz quartet. The cast of a stage play. A work team, a classroom discussion seminar, or a family, planning a summer vacation. In all of these groups, creativity and collaboration are essential. And perhaps the most creative collaborating groups are music and theatre ensembles. This title draws on studies of performing ensembles to provide insights into all group creativity. The author explores participants' close listening and sensitivity, the submerging of each ego in the group dynamic, and the ways that people work together to create something better than any single person could create alone.

Table of Contents:
Contents: Introduction. Jamming in Jazz and Improv Theater. Interaction and Emergence: An Interactional Semiotics. Group Creativity and the Arts. Group Creativity as Mediated Action. Degrees of Improvisation in Group Creativity. Collective Ideation: Creativity, Teamwork, and Collaboration.

Review :
"...the book is interesting and well written, and provides an excellent introduction to the subject." —CHOICE "...Sawyer managed to write an interesting and inspiring book that tries to capture the elusive phenomenon of interdependent performance in improvisation....the book offers interesting new perspectives and a theoretical elaboration that can contribute to a better foundation of analyses of improvisation in organizational settings. ....for scholars interested in improvisation in teams or organizations it is certainly worthwhile to study." —EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF WORK AND ORGANIATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY "Creativity across disciplines is a timely subject, and Sawyer combines a sophisticated analysis with a very lively, accessible--yet highly articulate--presentation. It fills a void in the existing literature. This book will have widespread appeal since it touches on virtually all disciplines." —Ed Sarath Chair, Department of Jazz and Contemporary Improvisation, University of Michigan "Sawyer has rapidly established himself as the primary expert on improvisational creativity and this book will be viewed as an important contribution to this previously neglected but theoretically and practically significant field. Group Creativity will be a valuable, influential, and widely-cited book." —David Harrington University of California at Santa Cruz "This book on improvisational creativity is a timely, interdisciplinary treatment of a neglected topic in the human sciences. Sawyer's theatre examples are delightful, his theoretical integration is learned and effective, his contribution to the creativity literature is substantial." —Vera John Steiner Presidential Professor of Education and Linguistics, University of New Mexico; a