The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science

The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science
Author: Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2020-12-03
Genre: Art
ISBN: 110847652X

The first ever companion to theatre and science brings together research on key topics, performances, and new areas of interest.

Theatre Sciences

Theatre Sciences
Author:
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2015-06-26
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1836241313

Traditional theatre semiotics promoted a scientific approach to theatre studies, albeit viewing semiotics as the unique discipline of research. Theatre Sciences: A Plea for a Multidisciplinary Approach to Theatre Studies suggests instead a multi-disciplinary approach, including the following theoretical disciplines: narratology, mythology, pragmatics, ethics, theatre irony, theory of genres, aesthetics, semiotics, theory of non-verbal figures of speech, rhetoric, psychoanalysis, reception theory, history, and sociology -- with semiotics being only one among equals. These disciplines are presented from the perspective of their possible contributions to a sound methodology of theatre-texts analysis. Traditional theatre semiotics, moreover, holds the view that the actual performance on stage is the genuine text of theatre, instead of the play-script. Despite this paradigmatic shift, however, this viewpoint has failed to produce commendable analyses of such texts. The alternative presupposition put forward in this volume entails a series of novel perceptions of the theatre-text and its possible impact on the experiencing spectator, whose role in reading, interpreting and experiencing the theatre-text is not less crucial than that of the text itself. This view presupposes that the theatre-text is a description of a fictional world generated by the theatre medium. The author also contests the age-old view that a theatre/fictional-text reflects a simple narrative structure, and suggests instead a complexity that consists of seven layers: personified, mythical, praxical, naive, ironic, modal and aesthetic -- with each one of them re-structuring the previous layer. Professor Rozik also presents and describes a semiotic layer that lends communicative capacity to the description of a fictional world, and two additional metaphoric and rhetoric layers, which structure the theatre experience. The underlying purpose is to illustrate the application of the aforementioned disciplines to these fictional layers, and eventually their joint application to entire theatre / fictional texts. Organisation of the book reflects the structure of a university course.

The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science

The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science
Author: Rick Kemp
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 811
Release: 2018-09-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1351690361

The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science integrates key findings from the cognitive sciences (cognitive psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary studies and relevant social sciences) with insights from theatre and performance studies. This rapidly expanding interdisciplinary field dynamically advances critical and theoretical knowledge, as well as driving innovation in practice. The anthology includes 30 specially commissioned chapters, many written by authors who have been at the cutting-edge of research and practice in the field over the last 15 years. These authors offer many empirical answers to four significant questions: How can performances in theatre, dance and other media achieve more emotional and social impact? How can we become more adept teachers and learners of performance both within and outside of classrooms? What can the cognitive sciences reveal about the nature of drama and human nature in general? How can knowledge transfer, from a synthesis of science and performance, assist professionals such as nurses, care-givers, therapists and emergency workers in their jobs? A wide-ranging and authoritative guide, The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance and Cognitive Science is an accessible tool for not only students, but practitioners and researchers in the arts and sciences as well.

Science on Stage

Science on Stage
Author: Stephen Hilgartner
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Total Pages: 234
Release: 2000
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780804736466

Behind today's headlines stands an unobtrusive army of science advisors—panels of scientific, medical, and engineering experts evaluate the safety of the food we eat, the drugs we take, and the cars we drive. This book studies, theoretically and empirically, the social process through which the credibility of expert advice is produced, challenged, and sustained.

An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences

An Introduction to Theatre, Performance and the Cognitive Sciences
Author: John Lutterbie
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 208
Release: 2019-09-05
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1474256821

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 topics such as the performer, the spectator, space and time, culture, and the text. Each chapter considers four layers of performance: conventional forms of theatre, performance art, and everyday life, offering an expansive vision of the impact of the cognitive sciences on performance in the widest sense. 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, 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, and Antonio Damasio. John Lutterbie offers a complex understanding of not only the act of performing but the forces that mark the place of theatre in contemporary society. In drawing on a variety of scientific articles, Lutterbie provides readers with an accessible account of significant research in areas in the field and reveals how the sciences can help us understand the experience of art.

Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett

Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett
Author: Kirsten E. Shepherd-Barr
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 397
Release: 2015-03-03
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0231538928

Evolutionary theory made its stage debut as early as the 1840s, reflecting a scientific advancement that was fast changing the world. Tracing this development in dozens of mainstream European and American plays, as well as in circus, vaudeville, pantomime, and "missing link" performances, Theatre and Evolution from Ibsen to Beckett reveals the deep, transformative entanglement among science, art, and culture in modern times. The stage proved to be no mere handmaiden to evolutionary science, though, often resisting and altering the ideas at its core. Many dramatists cast suspicion on the arguments of evolutionary theory and rejected its claims, even as they entertained its thrilling possibilities. Engaging directly with the relation of science and culture, this book considers the influence of not only Darwin but also Lamarck, Chambers, Spencer, Wallace, Haeckel, de Vries, and other evolutionists on 150 years of theater. It shares significant new insights into the work of Ibsen, Shaw, Wilder, and Beckett, and writes female playwrights, such as Susan Glaspell and Elizabeth Baker, into the theatrical record, unpacking their dramatic explorations of biological determinism, gender essentialism, the maternal instinct, and the "cult of motherhood." It is likely that more people encountered evolution at the theater than through any other art form in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Considering the liveliness and immediacy of the theater and its reliance on a diverse community of spectators and the power that entails, this book is a key text for grasping the extent of the public's adaptation to the new theory and the legacy of its representation on the perceived legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of scientific work.

Performance and the Medical Body

Performance and the Medical Body
Author: Alex Mermikides
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 273
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1472570790

This edited collection focuses on performance practice and analysis that engages with medical and biomedical sciences. After locating the 'biologization' of theatre at the turn of the twentieth century, it examines a range of contemporary practices that respond to understandings of the human body as revealed by biomedical science. In bringing together a variety of analytical perspectives, the book draws on scholars, scientists, artists and practices that are at the forefront of current creative, scientific and academic research. Its exploration of the dynamics and exchange between performance and medicine will stimulate a widening of the debate around key issues such as subjectivity, patient narratives, identity, embodiment, agency, medical ethics, health and illness. In focusing on an interdisciplinary understanding of performance, the book examines the potential of performance and theatre to intervene in, shape, inform and extend vital debates around biomedical knowledge and practice in the contemporary moment.

Theatre and Cognitive Neuroscience

Theatre and Cognitive Neuroscience
Author: Clelia Falletti
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 281
Release: 2016-02-25
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1472584805

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 complexity of theatre and human cognition * Interdisciplinary perspectives on applied performance Each part includes contributions from international pioneers of interdisciplinarity in theatre scholarship, and from neuroscientists of world-renown researching the physiology of action, the mirror neuron mechanism, action perception, space perception, empathy and intersubjectivity. While illustrating the remarkable growth of interest in the performing arts for cognitive neuroscience, this volume also reveals the extraordinary richness of exchange and debate born out of different approaches to the topics.

Science & Theatre

Science & Theatre
Author: Emma Weitkamp
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2022-08-11
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1800436424

Weitkamp and Almeida enter into the space where museums, universities and research centres operate, as well as the space of theatre practitioners, they explore the richness and plurality of this universe, combining theory and practice, as well as presenting context, knowledge gaps and new data.

Quantum Theatre

Quantum Theatre
Author: Paul Johnson
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 205
Release: 2013-01-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 1443845736

Quantum Theatre uses the science of quantum mechanics to construct a rigorous framework for examining performance practice and the theatrical event, and live performance as a means of exploring the implications of quantum mechanics. Key ideas from physics are used to develop an interdisciplinary approach to writing about the work of a number of British theatre practitioners in terms of identity, observation and play. What this type of analysis does is enable an examination of aspects of performance that can remain hidden and so cast new light on the performance event. This is the first study of its kind that develops such a framework for analysis of contemporary performance, and provides a coherent alternative to postmodernism as a theoretical framework for writing about performance. As such, this book develops a methodology that can be applied to a wide range of performance practices. Furthermore, it presents an analysis of the work of a number of contemporary performance makers, including Vincent Dance Theatre and Triangle Theatre.