Performing the Remembered Present - (Performance and Science: Interdisciplinary Dialogues) (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

This international collection brings together scientists, scholars and artist-researchers to explore the cognition of memory through the performing arts and examine artistic strategies that target cognitive processes of memory. 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, instruments and environments. Using experimental, interpretive and Practice-as-Research methods that bridge disciplines, the authors provide overview chapters and case studies of subjects such as:

* collectively and environmentally distributed memory in the performing arts;
* autobiographical memory triggers in performance creation and reception;
* the journey from learning to memory in performance training;
* the relationship between memory, awareness and creative spontaneity, and
* memorization and embodied or structural analysis of scores and scripts.

This volume provides an unprecedented resource for scientists, scholars, artists, teachers and students looking for insight into the cognition of memory in the arts, strategies of learning and performance, and interdisciplinary research methodology.

Review Quotes

"Adds to an evolving field of study that explores the relationship between the performing arts and cognition, with an emphasis on the cognition of memory ... [and] makes a seminal contribution to the field of cognition and performance and serves as a necessary bridge between performing arts and the sciences." --South African Theatre Journal

About the Author

Pil Hansen is an Assistant Professor and Graduate Program Director at the School of Creative and Performing Arts, University of Calgary, Canada; a founding member of Vertical City Performance; and a dramaturg. Her empirical and PaR experiments examine cognitive dynamics of memory and perception in creative processes. With Bruce Barton, she developed the multi-disciplinary research model 'Research-Based Practice'. Hansen chairs the PSi Working Group on Dramaturgy and Performance; her award-winning creative work has toured nationally and internationally; and her scholarly research is published in Connection Science, Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, TDR: The Drama Review, Performance Research, Theatre Topics, and Koreografisk Journal among other journals and ten essay collections on dramaturgy, cognitive performance studies, and research methods. Hansen co-edited the essay collection Dance Dramaturgy: Modes of Agency, Awareness and Engagement (2015). Current and recent artistic collaborators are: Kaeja d'Dance, Theatre Junction Grand, Toronto Dance Theatre, and Public Recordings.

Bettina Bläsing is a responsible investigator at the Center of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC) at Bielefeld University, Germany. She studied Biology at Bielefeld University and Applied Animal Behaviour and Welfare at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Bettina worked as science journalist and editor, and as a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and University of Leipzig before joining the Neurocognition and Action Research Group at Bielefeld University in 2006. Her main research interests are mental representations of body, movement and space; the control and learning of complex movements and manual actions; and expertise in dance.