An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences

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 such topics as the performer, the spectator, space and time, and the text. Each chapter considers four layers of performance: conventional forms of theatre, performance art, everyday life, and applied arts, offering an expansive vision of the impact of the cognitive sciences on performance in the widest sense.

Beginning with the interaction of the performer and spectator, the reader explores the science and philosophy of embodiment, its relation to performance ecologies and aesthetics, and how the sciences can help us understand the experience of art. 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, John Moran, 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, Antonio Damasio, Susan Goldin-Meadow, and David O'Neill. The result is a complex understanding not only of the act of performing but the forces that mark the place of theatre in contemporary society.

In drawing on a variety of scientific articles, John Lutterbie provides readers with an accessible account of significant research in areas such as mirroring systems, memory and attention that are impacting our understanding of performance.

Introduction: Intersections
Why Cognitive Science in the Discussion of Art?
Limits of Science
Limits of Theatre and Performance
Cognitive Science, Performance Theory and Cultural Theory
Theatre, Performance and Everyday Life
God's Eye View, Bird's Eye View, and View from the Street
Spectators and Performers
Time and Space
Structure of the Book

Chapter 1: Landscapes
Dynamic Systems and Emergence
Brain, Body, Enaction
Affordances
Blending and Entailment
Meaning and Undecidability

Chapter 2: The Performer
Character, Role, and Image
Structuring Performance
Memory
Intention and Action
Improvisation in Performance

Chapter 3: The Spectator
Meaning and Blending
Affordances Redux
Enacted Viewing
Multisensory Nature of Spectatorship

Chapter 4: Space, Light, Sound and Texture
Performance Environments
“The Empty Space” and Its Vicissitudes
Enaction, Affordances, and Attention
Linking Performer and Spectator
The Ecologies of Space

Chapter 5: Text
Types of Texts
Horizons of Expectations Reconceived
Structure and the Performer
Structure and the Spectator

Chapter 6: Aesthetics and Time
Art, Beauty and the Aesthetic Experience
Neuroaesthetics
Mirroring Systems and the Default Network
Affordances and Unstable Meanings
Time
Dynamics Revisited
Aesthetics Past, Present and Future

Chapter 7: Theories of Performance and the Cognitive Turn
Modernism: Brecht and Artaud
Postmodernsim, Poststructuralism, and the Postdramatic
Neurodiversity and the Question of Difference

Epilogue: Science and Art Redux
Endnotes
Bibliography
Index

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