International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Rausch, A. M. (2024). Fear and how it inhibits creativity in performance arts education, with special attention to the theatrical design classroom. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(si2.1). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25si2.1

This paper will address the concept, ideologies, and challenges of fear and how it inhibits the development of creativity in theatre designers, practitioners, and students. Fear comes from many sources and manifests in various ways. Understanding where these fears originate is paramount. Fear can be a result of learned behaviors and traumas, cultural or societal influence, self-induced anxieties, as well as from physiological makeup in human nature. These root fears can then give rise to fears of insufficiency and a loss of confidence. After identifying these fears, an educator can encourage and inspire students who have previously believed success to be impossible or incompatible with the field they hope to work in. Additionally, an educator (and student) may then develop skills to aid successful application of creative behaviors. The concept of fear and its relationship to creativity is central to student development through both pedagogical and professional research, specifically in the theatrical design area. To instill growth and development of teaching strategies and course content, an educator must recognize, assess, and reconfigure teaching methods to meet students with varying levels of experience. Theatrical design courses, and other theatrical courses, may benefit from this research.