Affective Performance and Cognitive Science

Nicola Shaughnessy is Professor of Performance at the University of Kent, UK. She is Director of the Research Centre for Cognition, Kinesthetics and Performance and is leading the AHRC funded project 'Imagining Autism.' She is the author of Applying Performance (2012), Gertrude Stein (2007) and co-editor of Margaret Woffington (2008).

• General Introduction: Operating in Science Theatres Nicola ShaughnessyPart 1 Dances with ScienceIntroduction: Interdisciplinarity and Cognitive Approaches to Performance Evelyn B. Tribble and John Sutton1 Researching Dance Across Disciplinary Paradigms: A Reflective Discussion of the Watching Dance Project Matthew Reason, Dee Reynolds, Marie-Hélène Grosbras and Frank E. Pollick2 Retracing our Steps … On When We Were Birds, a work in progress Anna Furse3 Uncertain Knowledge: Representing Physical Pain through Performance Erin HoodPart 2 Touching Texts and Embodied PerformanceIntroduction: Texts and Embodied Performance Amy Cook4 An Exercise in Shame: The Blush in A Woman Killed With Kindness Natalie Bainter5 Wayfaring in Everyday Life: The Unravelling of Intricacy John Lutterbie6 Between Faulty Intellects and Failing Bodies: An Economy of Reciprocity in Wit and 33 Variations Naomi RokotnitzPart 3 The Multimodal ActorIntroduction: The Multimodal Practitioner Rhonda Blair7 Embodied Memory and Extra-Daily Gesture Neal Utterback8 Footage: Surface Feelings Martin Welton9 The Effect of Theatre Training on Cognitive Functions Gabriele SofiaPart 4 Affecting AudiencesIntroduction: Spectating as Sandbox Play Bruce McConachie10 (Syn)aesthetics and Immersive Theatre: Embodied Beholding in Lundahl & Seitl’s Rotating in a Room of Images Josephine Machon11 Politics in the Dark: Risk Perception, Affect and Emotion in Lundahl & Seitl’s Rotating in a Room of Images Adam Alston12 Touched by Meaning: Haptic Effect in AutismMelissa TriminghamNotes Select BibliographyIndex

A deft exploration of the kind of cross-disciplinary work that promises to contribute to a fundamental shift in the way we think about performance. … Shaughnessy illuminates the complex and fruitful space created by challenging binary separations of art and science, then she invites us to dance across it too.