Embodied Consciousness

Embodied Consciousness PDF Author: J. McCutcheon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137320052
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This volume of essays combines research from neuroscience, conscious studies, methods of training performers, modes of creating a staged narrative, Asian aesthetics, and post-modern theories of performance in an examination of the relationship between consciousness and performance.

Embodied Consciousness

Embodied Consciousness PDF Author: J. McCutcheon
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137320052
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
This volume of essays combines research from neuroscience, conscious studies, methods of training performers, modes of creating a staged narrative, Asian aesthetics, and post-modern theories of performance in an examination of the relationship between consciousness and performance.

Narrative Absorption

Narrative Absorption PDF Author: Frank Hakemulder
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027265135
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
Narrative Absorption brings together research from the social sciences and Humanities to solve a number of mysteries: Most of us will have had those moments, of being totally absorbed in a book, a movie, or computer game. Typically we do not have any idea about how we ended up in such a state. Nor do we fully realize how we might have changed as we return for the fictional worlds we have visited. The feeling of being absorbed is one of the most illusive and transient feelings, but also one that motivates audiences to spend considerable amounts of time in narrative worlds, and one that is central to our understanding of the effects of narratives on beliefs and behavior. Key specialists inform the reader of this book about the nature of the peculiar state of consciousness during episodes of absorption, the perception of absorption in history, the role of absorption in meaningful experiences with narratives, the relation with related phenomena such as suspense and identification, issues of measurement, and the practical implications, for instance in education-entertainment. Various fields have worked separately on topics of absorption, albeit using different terminology and methods, but having reached a high level of development and complexity in understanding absorption. Now is the time to bring them together. This volume will be a point of reference for years to come.

The Cambridge Introduction to Tom Stoppard

The Cambridge Introduction to Tom Stoppard PDF Author: William Demastes
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1139851713
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 179

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Book Description
Tom Stoppard is widely considered to be one of the most important dramatists of contemporary theatre. In this Introduction, William Demastes provides an accessible overview of Stoppard's life and work, exploring all the complexity and variety that makes his drama so unique. Illustrated with images from a diverse range of Stoppard productions, the book provides clear evaluations of his major works, including Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Travesties, Arcadia and The Coast of Utopia, to provide the most up-to-date assessment available. Detailed chapters situate each play in the context of its sources, which include Shakespeare and contemporary existential thought, espionage, quantum physics, chaos theory, romanticism, landscape design, nineteenth-century European intellectual thought and European totalitarianism. The book also includes a section on Stoppard's Academy Award-winning film Shakespeare in Love.

The Purpose of Playing

The Purpose of Playing PDF Author: Robert Gordon
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 9780472068876
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 430

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Book Description
A comparative survey of the major approaches to Western acting since the 19th century

Science on Stage

Science on Stage PDF Author: Kirsten Shepherd-Barr
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691188238
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Science on Stage is the first full-length study of the phenomenon of "science plays"--theatrical events that weave scientific content into the plot lines of the drama. The book investigates the tradition of science on the stage from the Renaissance to the present, focusing in particular on the current wave of science playwriting. Drawing on extensive interviews with playwrights and directors, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr discusses such works as Michael Frayn's Copenhagen and Tom Stoppard's Arcadia. She asks questions such as, What accounts for the surge of interest in putting science on the stage? What areas of science seem most popular with playwrights, and why? How has the tradition evolved throughout the centuries? What currents are defining it now? And what are some of the debates and controversies surrounding the use of science on stage? Organized by scientific themes, the book examines selected contemporary plays that represent a merging of theatrical form and scientific content--plays in which the science is literally enacted through the structure and performance of the play. Beginning with a discussion of Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, the book traces the history of how scientific ideas (quantum mechanics and fractals, for example) are dealt with in theatrical presentations. It discusses the relationship of science to society, the role of science in our lives, the complicated ethical considerations of science, and the accuracy of the portrayal of science in the dramatic context. The final chapter looks at some of the most recent and exciting developments in science playwriting that are taking the genre in innovative directions and challenging the audience's expectations of a science play. The book includes a comprehensive annotated list of four centuries of science plays, which will be useful for teachers, students, and general readers alike.

To Bear Witness

To Bear Witness PDF Author: Ted Dalbotten
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1453515836
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
To Bear Witness is a series of essays plus other material having to do mainly with persons no longer living who have left an indelible imprint on the life of the writer, though he has known most of themonly through their work. They include among others Martha Graham, Ruth Draper, Isadora Duncan, Louis Horst, Shakespeare, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel. Margaret Beals, Meredith Monk and John Devers, In all of the selections aspects of their life and output are describeddiscussedcommented upon. Many are an act of memory. Three of them contain extensive quotations. But every one of them has been done in homage out of deep appreciation, respectand love.

Beast-People Onscreen and in Your Brain

Beast-People Onscreen and in Your Brain PDF Author: Mark Pizzato
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN:
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
A new take on our bio-cultural evolution explores how the "inner theatre" of the brain and its "animal-human stages" are reflected in and shaped by the mirror of cinema. Vampire, werewolf, and ape-planet films are perennial favorites—perhaps because they speak to something primal in human nature. This intriguing volume examines such films in light of the latest developments in neuroscience, revealing ways in which animal-human monster movies reflect and affect what we naturally imagine in our minds. Examining specific films as well as early cave images, the book discusses how certain creatures on rock walls and movie screens express animal-to-human evolution and the structures of our brains. The book presents a new model of the human brain with its theatrical, cinematic, and animal elements. It also develops a theory of "rasa-catharsis" as the clarifying of emotions within and between spectators of the stage or screen, drawing on Eastern and Western aesthetics as well as current neuroscience. It focuses on the "inner movie theater" of memories, dreams, and reality representations, involving developmental stages, as well as the "hall of mirrors," ape-egos, and body-swapping identifications between human beings. Finally, the book shows how ironic twists onscreen—especially of contradictory emotions—might evoke a reappraisal of feelings, helping spectators to be more attentive to their own impulses. Through this interdisciplinary study, scholars, artists, and general readers will find a fresh way to understand the potential for interactive mindfulness and yet cathartic backfire between human brains—in cinema, in theater, and in daily life.

Presence of the Body

Presence of the Body PDF Author: Gert Hofmann
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004334742
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
Presence of the Body provides an interdisciplinary forum for the dialogue between theory and practice about the impact of the body on human awareness in the fields of art, writing, meditative practice, and performance. This dialogue benefits from the neuro-systematic integration of “embodied” knowledge in the cognitive sciences, but it also suggests creative and transformative dynamics of embodiment which, beyond conceptualisation, emerge in sophisticated acts of writing, performing and meditating. Exploring the presence and experience character of the body-awareness relationship, a double perspective beyond cognitive fixations is suggested: 1) a body-centred touch of the world which inspires life as a creative ‘writing’ process, and 2) in line with Buddhist thought, an empty space of ‘pure presence’ from which all conscious processes originate.

The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science

The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science PDF Author: Kirsten Shepherd-Barr
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847652X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
The first ever companion to theatre and science brings together research on key topics, performances, and new areas of interest.

Playing Underground

Playing Underground PDF Author: Stephen J. Scott-Bottoms
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
ISBN: 0472022210
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 415

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Book Description
"Scrupulously researched, critically acute, and written with care, Playing Underground will become a classic account of an era of hard-won free expression." -William Coco "At last---a book documenting the beginnings of Off-Off Broadway theater. Playing Underground is an insightful, illuminating, and honest appraisal of this important period in American theater." -Rosalyn Drexler, author of Art Does (Not!) Exist and Occupational Hazard "An epic movie of an epic movement, Playing Underground is a book the world has waited for without knowing it. How precisely it captures the evolution of our revolution! I am amazed by the book's scope and scale, and I bless its author especially for giving two greats, Paul Foster and H. M. Koutoukas, their proper, polar places, and for memorializing such unjustly forgotten masterpieces as Irene Fornes's Molly's Dream and Jeff Weiss's A Funny Walk Home. Stephen Bottoms's vivid evocation of the grand adventure of Off-Off Broadway has woken and broken my heart. It is difficult to believe that he was not there alongside me to breathe the caffeine-nicotine-alkaloid-steeped air." -Robert Patrick, author of Kennedy's Children and Temple Slave Few books address the legendary age of 1960s off-off Broadway theater. Fortunately, Stephen Bottoms fills that gap with Playing Underground---the first comprehensive history of the roots of off-off Broadway. This is a theater whose legacy is still felt today: it was the launching pad for many leading contemporary theater artists, including Sam Shepard, Maria Irene Fornes, and others, and it was a pivotal influence on improv comedy and shows like Saturday Night Live. Off-off Broadway groups such as the Living Theatre, La Mama, and Caffe Cino captured the spirit of nontraditional theater with their edgy, unscripted, boundary-crossing subjects. Yet, as Bottoms discovers, there is no one set of truths about off-off Broadway to uncover; the entire scene was always more a matter of competing perceptions than a singular, concrete reality. No other author has managed to illuminate this shifting tableau as Bottoms does. Through interviews with dozens of the era's leading playwrights, performers, directors, and critics, he unearths a countercultural theater movement that was both influential and transforming-yet ephemeral and quintessentially of its moment. Playing Underground will be a definitive work on the subject, offering a complete picture of an important but little-studied period in American theater.