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Author Bio

Julian Marshall is a British musician, songwriter, and composer with a long and varied career. He was part of Marshall Hain, which had a platinum-selling hit “Dancing in the City” in 1978, and The Flying Lizards, known for their 1979 UK Top 5 hit cover of “Money (That's What I Want).” Since 2009, Marshall has focused on composing classical-leaning works, such as Out of the Darkness and The Angel in the Forest, which set poems by Gertrud Kolmar to music. This led to the creation of The Welten Project in 2021. His recent releases include the EP One Bright Pearl in July 2024.

Dr. Morris (Mo) Cohen is an independent scholar. He holds a PhD in Solo Autobiographical Theatre as a Process of Self-Transformation and teaches creative process at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance (ICMP). As a coach and facilitator specializing in self-transformation, Mo has developed Limina Creative as a methodology that integrates narrative practices, transformative learning, and the creative arts. Mo is co-editor of this special issue of the Journal of Ontological Inquiry in Education.

Keywords

Process-focused, the how of creativity

Abstract

This conversational inquiry explores the ontology of creativity through an extended dialogue between two educators at the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance. Moving beyond conventional pedagogical frameworks, the conversation grapples with fundamental questions: What is the relationship between technique and creative emergence? How does the teacher create conditions for creativity without systematizing or conceptualizing the creative process itself? What role do trust, validation, and vulnerability play in opening students to their own creative potential? Drawing on diverse philosophical and spiritual traditions--from Heidegger’s ontological inquiry to Buddhist concepts of not-knowing, from Grotowski’s via negativa to the Kabbalistic notion of tzimtzum--Julian Marshall reflects on his forty-year journey as composer, songwriter, and teacher. Through the metaphor of “sliding up” to creativity rather than approaching it head-on, Marshall articulates a pedagogy that privileges presence over methodology, questioning over certainty, and becoming over being. Central to this inquiry is the paradoxical relationship between technical mastery and creative freedom. Marshall argues that creativity happens “through technique” rather than after or beyond it--that rigorous engagement with craft creates the conditions through which something other than the predictable can emerge. Yet he remains wary of reducing this process to a teachable system, insisting that creativity retains an irreducible quality of mystery, grace, and “getting it-ness” that cannot be manufactured or guaranteed. The conversation itself enacts the ontological inquiry it describes: circular rather than linear, associative rather than logical, grappling rather than claiming. As the editor notes, “we circle into truth through stories.” This dialogue offers educators and creative practitioners not a methodology but an invitation--to remain present to the fragile, elusive nature of creativity while honoring the technical foundations that make creative emergence possible.

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