ABSTRACT
This part considers how insights from cognitive neuroscience can inform the practice of various genres of performance. Information from this field has informed the work of both practitioners and scholars of theatre and performance since the early 2000s. Neuroscience investigates the organisation and functions of the nervous system, seeking to better understand the brain’s relationship to behaviour and cognitive functions. These include, for example, perceiving, thinking, imagining, remembering, speaking, gesturing, planning and doing. Evidently, all of these activities occur in the creation and performance of theatre, and in its reception by audiences. However, much of this cognitive activity happens below the level of conscious awareness, so it is difficult to analyse. The discoveries of neuroscience allow theatre and performance practitioners to better understand both their subject matter – human experience and behaviour – and the often intuitive processes involved in the preparation and presentation of performance in multiple genres. Researchers in cognitive neuroscience combine data from experimental studies with discipline-specific knowledge to build theories that are consistent with empirical evidence of the brain’s functions. The ensuing body of knowledge has led to significant changes in the ways in which we understand phenomena such as perception, language and gesture, emotion, imagination, memory, empathy – even the idea of self. These changes challenge many of the traditional concepts of the mind, brain and self that underlie the practices, training and scholarship of Western theatre. Consequently, an increasing number of practitioners and scholars have been inspired to apply this new knowledge to their art form. There are, however, challenges involved in doing this, as cognitive neuroscience is a broad multi-disciplinary field with many competing theories. Theatre and performance practitioners and scholars have tended to focus on the ‘embodied cognition’ view of the brain’s functions, which proposes that what people perceive, how they conceive and what they do all develop interactively and are tied to their environment. Even within this broad understanding, there are variances of opinion that will appear in the chapters of this part. We hope that these variances, rather than appearing contradictory, will inspire readers of this book to go deeper into the field to determine which perspective accords with their own experience.
