Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 14 Number 2, August 2013
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Shaughnessy, Nicola. Applying performance: Live art, socially engaged theatre and affective practice. Great Britian: Palgrave and MacMillan, 2012. Pp288, ISBN 978-0-230-24133-6
Reviewed by
Mohawk College, Hamilton, ON Canada
“At the beginning of writing, there is a loss, what cannot be said” (de Certeau, 1984, 195); Applying Performance: Live art, socially engaged theatre and affective practice (2012), by Nicola Shaunghessy, manages to say quite a lot about applied theatre, performance, cognitive science and affective theory. In fact, whether performances are viewed as decomposing presences moving toward memorable absence, whether they are meaningful social practices in educational, social or community contexts, whether they are inter-subjective, liminal spaces challenging traditional structures and frameworks, Shaunghessy uses her expert authority to prove that performance matters, and that it matters in an enormous way.
Anyone self-selecting this particular text would have a similar bias. Yet, this is not another ethereal championing of the arts. The significance of Applying Performance rests, not in what the author is celebrating, but in how she celebrates the value of applied theatre and performance. Like Brian Boyd’s compelling link between Darwin’s evolutionary theory and art in On the origins of stories, Shaunghessy makes cross-connections with various literary studies and scientific theories to present a refreshing, invigorating and well-crafted argument emphasizing that the life-blood of applied theatre – empathy as it is triggered through embodied engagement – is significant to 21st century life.
Firmly placing her work within its theoretical and theatrical contexts, Shaughnessy examines diverse case studies of applied theatre, contemporary performance and live art through the lens of affective cognitive theory. The focus on cognitive science moves the discussion regarding the importance of art into a new arena of aesthetic awareness and value that goes beyond the conventional definition of performance as a curatorial practice. In fact, while she definitely expands theatre’s perimeters to innovative – to say nothing of unlikely -- venues, her study provides the opportunity for further interdisciplinary connections into “other” theatrical practices not customarily included in the dialogic of performance. These open doorways into other avenues of enquiry are what make her work more than just a reportage of present “absences”.
In effect, Nicola Shaughnessy weaves the threads of multiple discourses and disciplines into one tapestry intended to enhance the “scientific and biological” reason performance matters. She expertly pulls together areas of enquiry and theory that have been running along parallel, yet separate, corridors. Since her focus involves complex, multimodal experiences another methodology is needed to examine an “art that seeks to be alert and responsive to its contexts, sites, and audience ”(p xix). This new methodology is Cognitive Theory. In fact, Shaughnessy states that the book is designed to function like neurological units where meaning resides between connections rather than within any one unit. This metaphor is appropriately rich since brain plasticity provides a “physiology” of hope inviting new pathways, and [neuro]logical connections for the valuing of art as a key component to human development, emotion and learning.
Divided into three parts, Applying Performance sets the theoretical and historical contexts for Shaughnessy’s study of international exemplars of applied theatre. First, she defines a topic whose raison d’ètre is to defy limiting definitions. Here, she calls upon the work of Helen Nicholson who says, “in applied theatre. . . the spectator’s active engagement is fundamental to its construction and ideology. . . [it] relates to work which is orientated towards aspects of social change, personal development and community building through various forms of participation in drama, theatre and other performance practices” (p9). These studies are politically or pedagogically motivated live experiences that appropriate borders, boundaries and buildings in order to “challenge or to transform existing systems of representation, hierarchies and ideologies” (xvi). Yet, Shaughnessy clearly states that this mantra of applied performance and theatre occurs on many levels, so that what readers will encounter in her study “are different genealogies. . . engaged in dialogue” (xvi).
Within this first section, Shaughnessy provides a taxonomy based on seven principles of applied performance “as a means of defining and evaluating the practices observed and discussed (31). Finally, it is here that Shaughnessy introduces the book’s main contribution to the field of applied performance and theatre: the application of neuroscience in general, and the work of Bruce McConachie in particular to applied performance. Throughout the rest of the text, Shaughnessy expertly weaves cognitive theory and new brain research into her study in a manner that encourages further leaps and connections.
Part two focuses on applied performance practices as they are embodied in specific artistic creations involving a rich array of elements that distinguish it from other social practices. These experiences are concerned with the pedagogy of affect, kinaesthetics and ethical issues, the politics of space and place as it collides with past and present identities and communities, and, of course, a challenging of socially constructed binaries such as creator/receiver, performer/participant, actor/audience. Pivotal to her theoretical explanation of applied theatre are the case studies she painstakingly recounts from memory, interviews, or other documented [re]collections. Again, using cognitive theory, specifically the idea of mirror neurons, as outlined by McConachie, the book examines issues of identity, memory and autobiography. The artistic (re)presentation of trauma as “both effected and affected through mirroring” (60) is explored along with Richard Schechner’s conceptualization of RASA as embodiment. Once again, Shaughnessy’s synectic approach stimulates other theoretical combinations between the world of science and art. The book encourages these combinations by presenting case studies from intergenerational performances, applied theatre with dementia patients, autobiographical explorations and applied theatre through digital technology. Finally, as a means of showcasing the wide variety of pedagogies and politics within the practice, Shaughnessy shows place as providing “the conditions of possibility for creative social practice. Place in this sense becomes an event rather than a secure ontological thing rooted in notions of the authentic” (113).
Part three turns toward two key components when discussing applied performance: participant perspective and affective practice. The case studies in this section aim to “empower individuals as autonomous agents whilst also facilitating collective identities” (187). The works tend to challenge the traditional binary of spectator/actor in order to encourage a questioning of “fixed identities, stereotypical images, and so on” (199). As in the earlier sections, Shaughnessy again returns to the impact of cognitive science on this new relationship. She states, “cognitive theory embraces a dynamic understanding of identity and subjectivity whereby bodily experience and social interactions shape the mind/brain and vice versa” (194). She also emphasizes that the close proximity of participants in applied performance is regarded by cognitive scientists “as a factor in provoking empathic engagement” (190). With the present move toward interactive, digital experiences, these statements clearly articulate the difference between Internet experiences and participatory and immersive forms of performance. The delineation between them, and the use of performance theory and cognitive science has exciting implications for other fields of research, such as education.
In the preface, Nicola Shaughnessy states that each part of the book is “designed to work as a touchstone to provoke further discussion, to stimulate new ideas for new application, and to provide working examples of the integration of theory and practice within a cognitive framework” (xvi). While Applying performance: live art, engaged theatre and affective practice provides self-contained cases of applied performance from the UK, Canada and the US, her theoretical and contextual framing does indeed stimulate further ideas and dialogues. The link between these examples and cognitive theory, affective theory and embodied learning strengthens the fundamental understanding and practice of empathy as a necessary life skill. Time and again, Shaughnessy returns to mirror neurons, empathetic engagements, spatial relations, corporeal memory, embodied knowledge, the connection between mind and body, to emphasize her study, and by doing so, she opens pathways for new discussions regarding other embodied and affective experiences.