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...

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...

This is the first volume to provide a detailed introduction to some of the main areas of research and practice in the interdisciplinary field of art and neuroscience. With contributions from neuroscientists, theatre scholars and artists from seven countries, it offers a rich and rigorous array of perspectives as a springboard to further exploration. Divided into four parts, each prefaced by an expert editorial introduction, it examines:

* Theatre as a space of relationships: a neurocognitive perspective
* The spectator's performative experience and 'embodied theatrology'
* The...

This international collection brings together scientists, scholars, and artist-researchers from four continents to explore the cognition of memory through the performing arts and examine artistic strategies that target cognitive processes of memory and learning. The strongly embodied and highly trained memory systems of performing artists render artistic practice a rich context for understanding how memory is formed, utilized, and adapted through interaction with others and active engagement with tasks, instruments and environments. Using methods of scientific experimentation,...