Affective Performance and Cognitive Science

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.

BRUCE MCCONACHIE is Professor of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, USA.

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).

Amy Cook is Dean of the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College, Boston, USA. She 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.

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.

Erin Hood is currently a PhD student in Theatre and Drama at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.