The Creativity Gene with Sara Wood
The Creativity Gene Pre-Release Interviews
We’re onto the next interview in our series with Sara Wood! As a quick reminder, I will be sharing each person’s interpretation of creativity and how it has become part of their life. When the book is released, you will be able to explore this topic yourself and understand how creativity can become your customized superpower. I am SO PUMPED to share these messages with you and look forward to working towards finding alignment with your creative potential!
The Creativity Gene with Sara Wood
Here come the Geminis! Sara and I don't only share a birthday (May 21) we also share a love of creativity. However, Sara is WAY more coordinated than me! She’s a professional dancer and choreographer. She has graced countless stages throughout her life with her poise and talent and has explored her creativity on a beautifully expressive level. I got to see her perform multiple times while we were working on cruise ships together, and her connection with her fellow dancers, the stage, her audience, her movements, and beyond become instantly apparent through her striking steps.
In the world of constant movement, she associates creativity with an ever-changing and evolving aspect of her life allowing her to translate her emotions into stories on a stage. She brings moving and emotional stories to life without words. However, we’re lucky enough to hear her story through her words.
When did you begin dancing?
Sara: I’ve been dancing my whole life, and have professionally danced for 11 years. Some of my earliest memories are of dance parties all over the house while the Eagles or the Police were blasting through the speakers. I would force performances of all sorts on anyone and everyone around me. It became very obvious that I was a mover from a young age, so my parents put me in dance classes. As most dancers and choreographers I was brought up in a dance studio, growing up learning and performing many different dances in different genres. When I was in High school I started taking more interest in the choreographic side of things and how much fun it was to create different stories and different ways of telling those stories. It was an amazing new form of communication that just made sense to me. Discovering this new layer of dance only made me fall in love with it even more.
How do you get into your flow or zone?
Sara: I do my best work when I am just fooling around in a dance studio (or my kitchen), moving to whatever music decides to come out of my phone. I also love to work with my dancers, watching the way their bodies move and interpret my work and use that as the foundation of something new.
What inspires your dancing?
Sara: Connection. Connection to a story, character, piece of music, to the audience. Dance is such an interactive art form, and I strive to create experiences and memories for others, to make sure that they feel something during and after a performance.
What are some challenges you face?
Sara: I find the most damaging thing to my creativity is when I am trying to meet the success of past work, or when I am trying to “be better” than last time. In dance, the turnover of work is very fast and it can become really overwhelming to keep up with the expectations of others (which is funny as someone who believes that creativity is fluid and requires ones self to be ever-changing).
How do you overcome them?
Sara: This is something that I am not sure I have a formula for. I just keep moving and keep moving forward (because there is usually a deadline involved in dance). Not being my own roadblock when it comes to my creativity is something that I am still working on.
What do you need to be the best dancer you can be?
Sara: Music, all sorts of music. It is a tool that I can bring with me anywhere I go, it can inspire choreography at any given moment. I always tell my dancers to think about how music is made… it is made by movement, whether it be hands-on keys, lips on an instrument, voice, wind blowing, or waves crashing. Therefore when we perform, we perform in tandem with, as if the music is only happening to tell our story, and vice versa.
How do you want your dancing to impact others?
Sara: Both as a dancer and a choreographer I want my audience to feel something, anything. I want them to come on a journey where, when they leave the theatre they are still thinking about or feeling a certain way about what they just saw. I want them to enjoy themselves, to create memories, and sometimes even to inspire them to start dancing. And as a teacher, I just hope to share my passion and help kids find their creative voice, and if I am lucky help them discover their own passions.
To see Sara in motion, check out her Instagram here!
Find out more stories like this from Sara and some other amazing creators over the next few weeks in preparation for the release of my new book: The Creativity Gene: 5 Universal Traits to Spark Success!