HARMONISING HERITAGE, BODY, AND MIND: INTERDISCIPLINARY TRAJECTORIES IN CREATIVE ARTS

Abstract

This issue presents an interdisciplinary collection of eight scholarly articles that explore the intersections of cultural heritage, pedagogical innovation, embodied cognition, therapeutic intervention, and artistic leadership. Across diverse geographical and institutional settings spanning Malaysia, Indonesia, and global comparative contexts, this issue demonstrates how creative artistic expressions operate as dynamic systems of meaning, identity negotiation, and psychosocial transformation. Two articles examine oral traditions and children’s vocal play in Sundanese and Malay communities, demonstrating how songs and rhythmic games structure social interaction and agrarian ecological knowledge rather than existing merely as static lyrical artifacts. Two studies ground traditional dance in contemporary pedagogical and diplomatic environments, revealing how music-integrated Zapin exercise fosters engagement among non-specialist teacher trainees in Johor, and how traditional choreography serves as micro-cultural diplomacy and identity reconstruction for diaspora youth in Kuala Lumpur. Further expanding the cognitive and therapeutic horizons, two syntheses investigate the affective mechanisms of music, contrasting bottom-up musical arousal with top-down narrative processing in mental health interventions, while deconstructing how familiarity, autobiographical meaning, and listening contexts mediate musical preference and felt emotion. Finally, two investigations interrogate performance architecture and institutional structures: one conceptualising auditory-motor synchronization in contemporary runway choreography, and the other uncovering the lived resilience and relational leadership of female brass band directors in Malaysian secondary schools. Collectively, this issue features that creative arts scholarship achieves its greatest potency when bridging embodied performance, empirical rigor, and cultural sustainability.