Description:
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.
Brief description: Amy Cook is Dean of the School of Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College, Boston, USA. She is the author of Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science, (2010) and essays in, among others, Theatre Journal, TDR, SubStance, the Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theatre, the Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (forthcoming). She was the co-chair of the Working Group in Cognitive Science and Performance for American Society for Theatre Research from 2010-2014.
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