In September CKP collaborated with the ICA, London, to host a further event in our 'Affective Science and Performance' series. Performance artists, and international scholars from the arts, the humanitites and the sciences came together to to explore how the brain and body experience and engage in performance.
This roundtable involved neuroscientists, performance scholars and practitioners engaging in dialogue about their experiences of interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange.
Contributers included: Nicola Clayton (Cambridge), Francesca Happe (Kings), Vincent Walsh (UCL) together with performance experts Rhonda Blair (USA.SMU), Anna Furse (Goldsmiths/Athletes of the Heart, UK), and Arti Prashar (Spare Tyre, UK) as well as representatives from two AHRC funded projects involving science/arts collaborations: Imagining Autism (University of Kent) and the Watching DAnce Project (Universities of Manchester, Glasgow, Imperial College, and York St John).
The discussion addressed a series of questions and debates within the field:
How can science benefit performance practice and scholarship?
What can theatre and performance offer to scientific research?
What methodologies are being used in interdisciplinary work and what new paradigms are being created from these interactions?
How do cognitive perspectives engage with traditional approaches to performance?
How do our bodies and brains engage with performance? What processes are involved in being in theatre?