Performance In Theatre And Everyday Life Cognitive Neuronal And Applied Aspects Of Acting

Theatre, Performance and Cognition introduces readers to the key debates, areas of research, and applications of the cognitive sciences to the humanities, and to theatre and performance in particular. It features the most exciting work being done at the intersection of theatre and cognitive science, containing both selected scientific studies that have been influential in the field, each introduced and contextualised by the editors, together with related scholarship from the field of theatre and performance that demonstrates some of the applications of the cognitive sciences to actor training, the rehearsal room and the realm of performance more generally. The three sections consider the principal areas of research and application in this interdisciplinary field, starting with a focus on language and meaning-making in which Shakespeare's work and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia are considered. In the second part which focuses on the body, chapters consider applications for actor and dance training, while the third part focuses on dynamic ecologies, of which the body is a part.

This is the first textbook designed for students, practitioners and scholars of the performing arts who are curious about the power of the cognitive sciences to throw light on the processes of performance. It equips readers with a clear understanding of how research in cognitive neuroscience has illuminated and expanded traditional approaches to thinking about topics such as the performer, the spectator, space and time, culture, and the text. Each chapter considers four layers of performance: conventional forms of theatre, performance art, and everyday life, offering an expansive vision of the impact of the cognitive sciences on performance in the widest sense. Written in an approachable style, An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences weaves together case studies of a wide range of performances with scientific evidence and post-structural theory. Artists such as Robert Wilson, Societas Raffaello Sanzio, Ariane Mnouchkine, Bertolt Brecht, and Antonin Artaud are brought into conversation with theories of Gilles Deleuze, Shaun Gallagher, Alva Noë, Tim Ingold and the science of V. S. Ramachandran, Vittorio Gallese, and Antonio Damasio. John Lutterbie offers a complex understanding of not only the act of performing but the forces that mark the place of theatre in contemporary society. In drawing on a variety of scientific articles, Lutterbie provides readers with an accessible account of significant research in areas in the field and reveals how the sciences can help us understand the experience of art.

This anthology is the first of its kind. In addition to opening up fresh perspectives on theatre studies – with applications for dramatic criticism, performance analysis, acting practice, audience response, theatre history, and other important areas – the book sets the agenda for future work, helping to map the emergence of this new approach. Following a comprehensive introduction, the contributors examine: the interfaces between cognitive studies and Lacanian psychoanalysis, phenomenology and communication theory different ideas from cognitive studies that open up the meanings of several plays the process of acting and the work of Antonio Damasio theatrical response: the dynamics of perception, and the riots that greeted the 1907 production of The Playboy of the Western World. This original and authoritative work will be attractive to scholars and graduate students of drama, theatre, and performance.

In this collection of essays, the four branches of radical cognitive science—embodied, embedded, enactive and ecological—will dialogue with performance, with particular focus on post-cognitivist approaches to understanding the embodied mind-in-society; de-emphasising the computational and representational metaphors; and embracing new conceptualisations grounded on the dynamic interactions of "brain, body and world". In our collection, radical cognitive science reaches out to areas of scholarship also explored in the fields of performance practice and training as we facilitate a new inter- and transdisciplinary discourse in which to jointly share and explore common reactions of embodied approaches to the lived mind. The essays originally published as a special issue in Connection Science.

The Actor, Image and Action is a 'new generation' approach to the craft of acting; the first full-length study of actor training using the insights of cognitive neuroscience. In a brilliant reassessment of both the practice and theory of acting, Rhonda Blair examines the physiological relationship between bodily action and emotional experience. In doing so she provides the latest step in Stanislavsky's attempts to help the actor 'reach the unconscious by conscious means'. Recent developments in scientific thinking about the connections between biology and cognition require new ways of understanding many elements of human activity, including: imagination emotion memory physicality reason. The Actor, Image and Action looks at how these are in fact inseparable in the brain's structure and function, and their crucial importance to an actor’s engagement with a role. The book vastly improves our understanding of the actor's process and is a must for any actor or student of acting.

"This is the first textbook designed for students, practitioners, and scholars of the performing arts who are curious about the power of the cognitive sciences to throw light on the processes of performance, It equips readers with a clear understanding of how research in cognitive neuroscience has illuminated and expanded traditional approaches to thinking about topics such as the performer, the spectator, space and time, cultur, and the text. Each chapter considers three layers of performance: conventional forms of theatre, performance art, and everyday life, offering an expansive vision of the impact of the cognitive sciences on performance in the widest sense"--Publisher description.

'Theatre, Performance and Cognition' introduces readers to the key debates, areas of research, and applications of the cognitive sciences to the humanities, and to theatre and performance in particular. It features the most exciting work being done at the intersection of theatre and cognitive science, containing both selected scientific studies that have been influential in the field.