Methuen Drama Theatre, Performance and Cognition: Languages, Bodies and Ecologies (Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues)

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. Review The three concepts addressed in this volume are central, contested, and used in significantly different ways in the humanities, neuroscience and psychology. Through presenting essays that use the term and then inviting someone more familiar with the sciences, this book challenges preconceptions about how terms are used and serve as a means of improving the quality of communication between disciplines. --John Lutterbie, Stony Brook University, USA About the Author Rhonda Blair, Professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX, USA, is the author of The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience (2008), and essays in Theatre Topics, TDR, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, among others, and several edited volumes. She was president of the American Society for Theatre Research, 2009-2012.Amy Cook, Associate Professor of Theatre Arts and English at Stony Brook University, New York, USA, is the author of Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science, (2010) and essays in, among others, Theatre Journal, TDR, SubStance, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre, the Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (forthcoming). She was the co-chair of the Working Group in Cognitive Science and Performance for American Society for Theatre Research from 2010-2014.Professor John Lutterbie is Chair of the Departments of Art and of Theatre Arts at Stony Brook University, USA, and is on the board of directors of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas.Nicola Shaughnessy is Professor of Performance at the University of Kent. 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).