Performance Phenomenology

This collection of essays addresses emergent trends in the meeting of the disciplines of phenomenology and performance. It brings together major scholars in the field, dealing with phenomenological approaches to dance, theatre, performance, embodiment, audience, and everyday performance of self. It argues that despite the wide variety of philosophical, ontological, epistemological, historical and methodological differences across the field of phenomenology, certain tendencies and impulses are required for an investigation to stand as truly phenomenological. These include: description of experience; a move towards fundamental conditions or underlying essences; and an examination of taken-for-granted presuppositions. The book is aimed at scholars and practitioners of performance looking to deepen their understanding of phenomenological concepts and methods, and philosophers concerned with issues of embodiment, performativity and enaction.

This book offers a timely discussion about the interventions and tensions between two contested and contentious fields, performance and phenomenology, with international case studies that map an emerging twenty-first century terrain of critical and performance practice. Building on the foundational texts of both fields that established the performativity of perception and cognition, Performance and Phenomenology continues a tradition that considers experience to be the foundation of being and meaning. Acknowledging the history and critical polemics against phenomenological methodology and against performance as a field of study and category of artistic production, the volume provides both an introduction to core thinkers and an expansion on their ideas in a wide range of case studies. Whether addressing the use of dead animals in performance, actor training, the legal implications of thinking phenomenologically about how we walk, or the intertwining of digital and analog perception, each chapter explores a world comprised of embodied action and thought. The established and emerging scholars contributing to the volume develop insights central to the phenomenological tradition while expanding on the work of contemporary theorists and performers. In asking why performance and phenomenology belong in conversation together, the book suggests how they can transform each other in the process and what is at stake in this transformation.

An accessible primer for art students or researchers new to phenomenology. This book introduces the study and application of performance art through phenomenology, inviting readers to explore contemporary performance art and activate their own practices. Using queer phenomenology to unpack the importance of a multiplicity of self/s, the book teaches readers how to be academically rigorous when capturing embodied experiences. Through approachable exercises, definitions of key phenomenological terms, and interviews and insights from some of the best examples of transgressive performance art practice, the work enriches the wider scholarship of theater studies. Situated within contemporary phenomenological scholarship, the book will appeal to radical artists, educators, and practitioner-researchers.

This core textbook provides a clear and accessible introduction to the key concepts of phenomenology in relation to theatre, showing how they shed light on the works of influential theatre-makers such as Brecht, Artaud, and Stanislavski. By placing these concepts in dialogue with theatre-makers, Johnston is able to demonstrate how philosophical ideas can be put to work in a theatrical context and how we can approach difficult theory from a practical perspective. Each chapter features exercises and topics for discussion to encourage readers to explore the ideas presented in more depth. This is an excellent resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students of theatre, performance studies, and philosophy.

In (toward) a phenomenology of acting, Phillip Zarrilli considers acting as a ‘question’ to be explored in the studio and then reflected upon. This book is a vital response to Jerzy Grotowski’s essential question: "How does the actor ‘touch that which is untouchable?’" Phenomenology invites us to listen to "the things themselves", to be attentive to how we sensorially, kinesthetically, and affectively engage with acting as a phenomenon and process. Using detailed first-person accounts of acting across a variety of dramaturgies and performances from Beckett to newly co-created performances to realism, it provides an account of how we ‘do’ or practice phenomenology when training, performing, directing, or teaching. Zarrilli brings a wealth of international and intercultural experience as a director, performer, and teacher to this major new contribution both to the practices of acting and to how we can reflect in depth on those practices. An advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting that is ideal for both the training/rehearsal studio and research, (toward) a phenomenology of acting is an exciting move forward in the philosophical understanding of acting as an embodied practice.

Phenomenological Inquiry in Education is an edited collection of 16 chapters that offers a fascinating and diverse range of approaches and views about phenomenological inquiry as applied in educational research. Written by a group of international scholars concerned about understanding lived experience, the editors assemble theoretical ideas, methodological approaches and empirical research to create a distinctive transdisciplinary outlook. Embodying many unique and useful insights the book provokes thought about the possibilities for phenomenology in contemporary educational research. The international contributors highlight what an exploration of lived experience can offer qualitative research and extend on methodologies commonly used in educational research. By grounding phenomenological inquiry in the complexities of doing research across discipline areas in education, the writers of the book forge links between theory and empirical research, and give their unique perspectives about how phenomenological ideas are being and might be employed in educational research. The book is thus carefully crafted to address both phenomenology as a philosophical tradition and its possibilities for educational research. This scholarly work will appeal to educational researchers, as well as those in broader social research. It taps into the growing international interest in phenomenological research in education which brings attention to lived experience and the highly important affective dimension of learning.

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.

Transformative Phenomenology captures the influence of phenomenology and hermeneutics on non-university-based scholar-practitioners who completed their doctoral education in later life, thus blending their workplace experiences with their intellectual interests. Contributions from seasoned university-based scholars also expand our understanding of phenomenological inquiry in fresh ways. The concept of "transformative phenomenology" springs from the long-term teaching and research experiences of David Allan Rehorick and Valerie Malhotra Bentz, the book's co-editors. Book jacket.