Embodied Consciousness Performance Technologies

This volume of essays combines research from neuroscience, consciousness studies, performer training systems, modes of creating a staged narrative, Asian aesthetics, and post-modern theories of performance in an examination of the relationship between consciousness and performance. Written by actors, directors, dancers, historians and theorists, the essays participate in the paradigm shift in the humanities and the arts from the textual to the performative. It is precisely that experience that is at the centre of the shift in the scientific study of consciousness. This collection of essays brings together a representation of this paradigm shift and the increasing body of research emerging at the intersections of consciousness and performance from theories of performance training to explorations on the role of performance in the construction of cultural aesthetics and community consciousness.

Jade Rosina McCutcheon has held positions at Charles Stuart University, Australia and University of California, Davis, USA and is now undertaking another PhD at Melbourne University, Australia in Feminist Film. Prior publications include Awakening the Performing Body, and previous awards have included the Rod Rose Award from the Society of Research Administrators International.

Barbara Sellers-Young is Dean of the Faculty of Fine arts at York University, Toronto, Canada. Previously, she was Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of California, Davis, USA. Prior publications include Teaching Personality with Gracefulness (1993), Breathing, Movement, Exploration (2001) and Bellydance: Orientalism, Transnationalism and Harem Fantasy (2005).

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Notes on Contributors
INTRODUCTION
1. Consciousness and the Brain: A Window to the Mind; Dahlia Zaidel
PART I: PEDAGOGY OF PERFORMANCE TRAINING
2. The Neuroscience Of Performance Pedagogy; Elizabeth Carlin Metz
3. Embodying Deep Practice: A Pedagogical Approach to Actor Training; Bonnie Eckard
4. When Consciousness Fragments: A Personal Encounter with Stage Fright; Bella Merlin
PART II: EASTERN INFLUENCES ON WESTERN PERFORMANCE TRAINING TECHNOLOGIES
5. Motion in Stillness, Stillness in Motion: Contemplative Practice in the Performing Arts; Barbara Sellers-Young
6. Pause in Breath: Potential for Altered States of Consciousness in Traditional Indian Performance; Devika Wasson
7. Embodied Consciousness: Warm Up and Cool Down; Daniel Meyer-Dinkgrafe
8. Altered States: Radiating Consciousness in Michael Chekhov's Technique; Andrew White
PART III: POLITICS, PERFORMANCE AND CONSCIOUSNESS
9. Irish Biopolitics and National (un) Consciousness. Mannix Flynn's Public Performance of Inclusion; Gabriella Calchi-Novati.
10. The Performance Mirror: Self, Consciousness and Verbatim Theatre; Jade Rosina McCutcheon
11. Oprah Feelin': Technologies of Reception in the Commercial Flash Mob; Mary Elizabeth Anderson
PART IV: THEORIZING THE CONSCIOUSNESS OF POST-MODERN PERFORMANCE
12. Reexamining Heidegger to Uncover Creativity in the Iteratively Bound Performer; Doug Rosson
13. Aesthetic Encounters of a Collective Consciousness; Eve Katsouraki.
14. Metatheatre and Consciousness; David Mason
Bibliography
Index