States of being, in relation to the world around us, have been interrogated since the Cartesian cogito ergo sum Western philosophical interpretation of consciousness and perception. This essay collection examines the impact and ontology of consciousness through cognitive and aesthetic aspects of theatre and performance. Creating a multimodal assessment of consciousness and its relation to theatrical forms, the editors employ ‘technologies’ of performance to introduce new insights from cognitive science as applied to actor training, reception, and theories of performativity. The essays appeal to readers interested in corporeality and consciousness by approaching consciousness in many ways: from empirical foundations of neuroscience and cognitive studies, to the transcendental and spiritual, to a self-effacing questioning of the status of the real in the postmodern era.

Each section explores the question, how is an understanding of consciousness formed, applied, replicated and pondered through the stage? The introduction approaches this question by offering a concise explanation of the processes of consciousness using the biological and cognitive research of neuroscientist D. W. Zaidel. Zaidel explicates consciousness and cognitions as ‘situated in the body as well as the brain’ (p. 3). Section I explores intersections of consciousness with performers, in training and pedagogy. Methods employed by Stanislavski, Bogart, Brecht and Barba, among others, are interrogated to tease out models of cognition. Section II focuses on the impact of Eastern meditative practices located in holistic body/mind approaches to Western performance practice. Zen contemplation and yogic spirituality are offered as potential ways to expand the possibilities of dance and theatre training, encouraging a heightened sense of mindfulness in and through the body. Section III moves beyond the performer and questions assumptions about reception. The limits of mimicry and mimesis are put to debate through Jade Rosina McCutcheon's intriguing discussion of the mirror neuron and reflection in the development process of verbatim theatre. The final section offers a culminating view; each of its essays approaches philosophical theories of cognition to reassess the nature of being in a postmodern epoch in which contemplations of the ‘real’ confer constant slippage. Doug Rossen reinterprets Heidegger to question the ontology of performativity, and Eve Katsoraki employs the work of Baudrillard and Rancière to explore new aesthetic constructions.

The methods and interventions chronicled in Embodied Consciousness are diverse, and taken together they provide a welcome and innovative critical dialogue on understandings of consciousness within and through performance. These approaches become the apparatus or ‘technologies’ mentioned in the title through which consciousness can be situated beyond the dualist model offered by Descartes. Breaking down traditional systems of theorization with the aid of new interpretations emphasizing the importance of the body in processes of consciousness, Embodied Consciousness helps readers to attain a richer, more informed sense of being and/in performance.