Creativity and Culture

In our last Skype call, we talked about how ethical considerations of different cultures address our practice.
In this post, I would like to focus on culture as an influence on creativity.
My inquiry topic is around creativity (where creativity is a product or process of creating novel and effective work), throughout my literature review I discovered that ethical considerations of a specific culture group will influence this groups interpretation of creativity. In particular, this refers to criteria of effectiveness.
Within the dance world, these are some of the examples that come to my mind straight away:
-Muslim religion does not support controversial dance styles such as twerking, dance hall, any dance styles that include close partner work between a male and female;
-Male belly dancing is common in Egypt and Turkey, however, is not perceived in the same positive manner around the rest of the World;
- For a long time, hip-hop was considered as an art form for lower social classes and therefore did not appear in theatres.
- Vogue was once danced only by the LGBT community.

Although I believe that the modern world is a lot more tolerant and influence of culture on creativity interpretation is not as strong, it is still present. Within my practice, I have to consider my students' background/culture and ethical considerations that are associated with it, as these will address the choreography and costumes. For example, some male students would not tolerate too feminine choreography or girls would not be prepared to wear a certain costume.