Dance to be creative: the creative beliefs, creativity ability and improvisation performance in experts, amateurs, and non-dancers

Introduction: The connection between dance and creativity offers a promising avenue for exploration. This study examines the relation between modern dance and creative performance (cognitive and motor) as well as creative self-beliefs. Methods: Expert dancers (35), amateur dancers (45) and non-dancers (controls, 36) performed a creative task and completed questionnaires measuring creative beliefs (self-concept, self-efficacy, and growth mindset). Experts and amateurs also performed a dance improvisation task. Results: (i) Experts performed better in both creative and improvisation tasks; amateurs showed higher creative performance than controls; (ii) experts (but not amateurs) reported higher creative self-beliefs than controls; (iii) improvisation performance was predicted by creative task scores in amateurs but not in experts, who likely rely more on their domain-specific expertise. Discussion: The results confirm links between dance and creative performance (cognitive and motor) and highlight the role of creative beliefs as a function of expertise.