Affective Performance and Cognitive Science: Body, Brain and Being(Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues)

This book explores new developments in the dialogues between science and theatre and offers an introduction to a fast-expanding area of research and practice.The cognitive revolution in the humanities is creating new insights into the audience experience, performance processes and training. Scientists are collaborating with artists to investigate how our brains and bodies engage with performance to create new understanding of perception, emotion, imagination and empathy. Divided into four parts, each introduced by an expert editorial from leading researchers in the field, this edited volume offers readers an understanding of some of the main areas of collaboration and research: 1. Dances with Science 2. Touching Texts and Embodied Performance 3. The Multimodal Actor 4. Affecting Audiences Throughout its history theatre has provided exciting and accessible stagings of science, while contemporary practitioners are increasingly working with scientific and medical material. As Honour Bayes reported in the Guardian in 2011, the relationships between theatre, science and performance are 'exciting, explosive and unexpected'. Affective Performance and Cognitive Science charts new directions in the relations between disciplines, exploring how science and theatre can impact upon each other with reference to training, drama texts, performance and spectatorship. The book assesses the current state of play in this interdisciplinary field, facilitating cross disciplinary exchange and preparing the way for future studies.

Table of Contents:
General Introduction: Operating in Science Theatres Nicola Shaughnessy Part 1 Dances with Science Introduction: Interdisciplinarity and Cognitive Approaches to Performance Evelyn B. Tribble and John Sutton 1 Researching Dance Across Disciplinary Paradigms: A Reflective Discussion of the Watching Dance Project Matthew Reason, Dee Reynolds, Marie-Hélène Grosbras and Frank E. Pollick 2 Retracing our Steps … On When We Were Birds, a work in progress Anna Furse 3 Uncertain Knowledge: Representing Physical Pain through Performance Erin Hood Part 2 Touching Texts and Embodied Performance Introduction: Texts and Embodied Performance Amy Cook 4 An Exercise in Shame: The Blush in A Woman Killed With Kindness Natalie Bainter 5 Wayfaring in Everyday Life: The Unravelling of Intricacy John Lutterbie 6 Between Faulty Intellects and Failing Bodies: An Economy of Reciprocity in Wit and 33 Variations Naomi Rokotnitz Part 3 The Multimodal Actor Introduction: The Multimodal Practitioner Rhonda Blair 7 Embodied Memory and Extra-Daily Gesture Neal Utterback 8 Footage: Surface Feelings Martin Welton 9 The Effect of Theatre Training on Cognitive Functions Gabriele Sofia Part 4 Affecting Audiences Introduction: Spectating as Sandbox Play Bruce McConachie 10 (Syn)aesthetics and Immersive Theatre: Embodied Beholding in Lundahl & Seitl’s Rotating in a Room of Images Josephine Machon 11 Politics in the Dark: Risk Perception, Affect and Emotion in Lundahl & Seitl’s Rotating in a Room of Images Adam Alston 12 Touched by Meaning: Haptic Effect in Autism Melissa Trimingham Notes Select Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Nicola Shaughnessy is Professor of Performance at the University of Kent, UK. She is Director of the Research Centre for Cognition, Kinesthetics and Performance and is leading the AHRC funded project 'Imagining Autism.' She is the author of Applying Performance (2012), Gertrude Stein (2007) and co-editor of Margaret Woffington (2008).

Review :
A deft exploration of the kind of cross-disciplinary work that promises to contribute to a fundamental shift in the way we think about performance. … Shaughnessy illuminates the complex and fruitful space created by challenging binary separations of art and science, then she invites us to dance across it too.