Explore and Experiment
when i was starting out in street dance
i love to freestyle and play around even
though i know very little about dancing
and looks like a fool for most of the
time however
the longer i study dance and the more
techniques i acquired
the more creatively trapped it and
burnout i feel
and i noticed the same pattern with my
drawing animating
and other creative practices there was a
time in both my art school and dancing
life
where i was solely focused on getting
the lessons right
and stick very closely to the rules from
my instructors
whenever my instructor asked me to
experiment i feel i’m not ready
and i don’t know how to i had a hard
time convincing and allowing myself to
be playful with the knowledge i had
this fear of creative experiment always
pulls me back
to repeating the same old boring stuff
and i start to feel ashamed of my own
work
why does allowing myself the freedom to
experiment feel so hard
how can i get out of this creative
desert i asked myself
and my mentors from different creative
fields interestingly
they all gave me the same answer explore
and experiment but
where do i start what do these two words
even mean
aren’t they the same thing if so why
repeat it twice
so does anyone know the difference
between explore and experiment
i came across the answer one day when i
was at a dance workshop
the instructor asked us to explore how
to move like seaweed
and this is what everybody in the class
did
and then he asked us to experiment how
siri moves under strong current
and how seaweed moves on the beach
i remember feeling at ease trying out
unfamiliar and stupid things
because the instructor used the word
explore
instead of experiment out of curiosity
i looked up the two words in the
dictionary and realized that
actually explore is abstract and
idea-oriented
on the other hand experiment is physical
and method oriented
the word explore means to collect data
of an unfamiliar area
there’s no expectation of outcome with
exploring
whereas experiment means to conduct a
test
which usually based upon an objective
and aims to acquire some measurable
outcomes
actually the common fear of creative
experiment comes from a misconception
that we have to be knowledgeable
the catch here is that you don’t need to
be an expert before you start
experimenting
we can explore along the way when we
experiment
just like you don’t need to know
everything about life before you start
living
so what is there to be scared of