The Performance and Science book series from Bloomsbury Methuen Drama has in its first three edited collections presented an impressive range of international approaches to the study of cognition (e.g. attention, thinking, learning, memory) in the performing arts. This work ranges from analytical studies, which draw on cognitive philosophy or science as theory and produce interpretive knowledge, through to empirical studies, which use experimental or socio-ethnographic research methods from the cognitive sciences and produce evidence-based, interdisciplinary knowledge.
The contents and structure of this third volume are focused on the development of analytical tools based on concepts of embodied, enactive and distributed cognition that are inspired by cognitive and phenomenological philosophy and, in some cases, the cognitive sciences. In short, embodied cognition refers to a close coupling of action and perception that produces a sensori-motor foundation for many cognitive processes. When looking at enactive cognition, thinking that emerges through active engagement with an environment is examined. The concept of distributed cognition invites us to acknowledge that cognition extends past the embodied minds of individuals and is guided and constrained by environmental and social organization. In other words, cognition is informed by bodily experiences that derive from active engagement with environments, which in turn deliver clues for what to perceive and how to act. In this volume, analytical tools are presented and developed through accessible scholarly analyses of early modern drama and contemporary theatre or dance praxis. Further emphasizing this orientation, the editors’ introduction outlines analytical and theoretical contributions to the field. Empirical (scientific or multidisciplinary) research in dance, applied theatre and cognition is not included. Instead, three leading cognitive philosophers and psychologists – Mark Turner, Catherine J. Stevens and Shaun Gallagher – contribute short and highly informative responses to each of the collection's three parts, while discussing philosophical or scientific implications of the concepts of cognition applied in the chapters.
The first part, ‘Cognitive Linguistics, Theatre and Performance’, examines the layers of complex, communicative cognition that can be embedded in an object, action or viewpoint within a theatrical frame. Because these studies turn to social cognition and cognitive linguistics to incorporate embodied frameworks and staging elements into literary studies of classical and early modern drama, the work can at first glance seem to rediscover established theatre-analytical insights. The reader is, nevertheless, rewarded when delving past this initial response through to, for example, Barbara Dancygier's inspiring discussion of cognitive story anchors: objects that actively produce complex meaning, like a watch that both represents and measures time. Another example is Laura Seymour's dramaturgically relevant analysis of the complex layers of social significance and action revealed by the embodied metaphor of kneeling in Julius Caesar.
The second part, ‘Bodies in Performance’, includes two analyses of enactive cognition and performance praxis. Edward C. Warburton reflects on marking in dance (the praxis of indicating movement instead of dancing it full out) both as a form of cognitive offload that aids memorization and as a shared language that generates social togetherness among performers. These reflections point towards interesting potential expansions of David Kirsh's influential study of marking as a form of creative thinking. Christopher J. Jackman presents an exceptionally well-crafted theoretical construction on ‘Training, Insight and Intuition in Creative Flow’. He takes the reader from sense-making that depends on implicitly learned motor skills in action (i.e. enactivism) through a discussion of discipline-specific and social enculturation. This foundation is used to advance flow theory with the proposal that enactive insight and novel discovery are made possible by the actor when socially disciplined, implicit skill is matched with new challenges that demand conscious attention.
In the third part, on ‘Cognitive Ecologies’, the authors take cognition outside the linguistic and enactive realms and into the physical and referential contexts of performers and audiences. Evelyn B. Tribble takes a precise and conceptually clear look at how the distribution into the environment of cognitive markers, which constrain and guide performance, is a dimension of thinking that even body-centric approaches to acting depend on. Matt Hayler bridges Din Ihde's post-phenomenological categories of technological interaction, each of which either extends the person's range of embodied perception and action or populates and regulates the person's environment, with the classical thesis that our experiences always already are mediated. He then explores how these forms of interaction are integrated into dance works that deliberately draw on the audience's mediated visual grammar.
The analytical tools offered are accessible for readers unfamiliar with cognitive philosophy: full definitions of the cognitive concepts applied are typically deferred to appended abstracts of key articles, the subject of research methodology is deferred to the response sections, and the cognitive paradigm is positioned in extension of the more widely recognizable analytical frameworks of hermeneutics and phenomenology. Readers can thus choose the extent to which they wish to engage with cognitive theory and research methods. This volume in the Performance and Science series is a valuable teaching resource and provides broad access to analytical insights produced through lenses of embodied, enactive and distributed cognition.
