What is Flow Arts?
As an art form that is slowly surfacing into recognition, Flow Arts describes the creative practice of integrating dance with skillful prop manipulation as a means of transitioning into the "flow state." Mikhail Csíkszentmihályi coined the term "flow" to describe a mindful awareness in which one immerses his or herself in the activity completely.¹ With practices like Yoga and Meditation emphasizing attention to the moment, Flow Arts accomplishes a similar task by inviting performers to express themselves with meditative movements that "feel right" and unite the artist and the object as one. Adding to the unique quality of the art form is the multitude of varied props: gloves, poi, hula hoops, staffs, etc. Usually performed at night, artists capture their audience with fire-lit or LED-lit objects. To learn more about LED technology, check out this link.
Why Flow Arts?
Simply engaging in an enjoyable leisure activity with regularity is correlated to greater life satisfaction.² However, the complexity of Flow Arts is far greater than to dismiss it merely on that note. Aside from being fun and unique hobbies, the varied practices of Flow Arts share emphasis on art, dance, creativity, and mindful flow. All these elements allow the art form to promote both personal growth and community bonding.
Benefits
Benefits
- Under proper circumstances art can be used as a form of therapy to facilitate healing in those with neurological and cognitive disorders including post traumatic stress and depression.³
- Regularly engaging art efficiently activates attention networks that are responsible for improved learning and memory skills.⁴
- Dance has been shown to significantly reduce anxiety, most probably, due to its expressive nature.⁵
- Being involved in creative activities is shown to reflect higher creativity in work performance and is positively correlated with mastery, control, and relaxation experiences in day to day performance.⁶
- With regards to flow arts engaging mindful behavior, studies show state mindfulness to be correlated with increased positive well-being due to better self-regulatory behaviors of emotion.⁷
- Learning to create Flow in practice allows the skill to more easily transfer to any areas in life.⁸
How to Get Involved?
If you wish you enrich yourself with a passion in Flow Arts, do not hesitate to check out any local Flow Arts clubs or festivals. At various universities, we offer Ambience to those in the community who wish to pick up a new talent or simply improve their own skills among like-minded individuals. By practicing in a community, people learn from observing others and generate skill mastery through constructive criticism.⁹ Not to mention being part of a community makes you feel secure and increasingly motivated.¹¹
If local opportunities like these are not available, then check out some of our resources on tips for improvement and tutorials on the different Flow Arts. Perhaps you can develop your own community of flow artists...
If local opportunities like these are not available, then check out some of our resources on tips for improvement and tutorials on the different Flow Arts. Perhaps you can develop your own community of flow artists...
Flow Arts Film
Check out this awesome film to get an in depth look at the flow arts movement. If you enjoyed the video, then please consider supporting the film makers with a small donation.