This book is about joint intelligence in action. It brings together scholarship in performance studies, cognitive science, sociology, literature, anthropology, psychology, architecture, philosophy and sport science to ask how tightly knit collaboration works. Contributors apply innovative methodologies to detailed case studies of martial arts, social interaction, freediving, site-specific artworks, Body Weather, human-AI music composition, Front-of-House at Shakespeare's Globe, acrobatics and failing at handstands. In each investigation, performance and theory are mutually revealing, informative and captivating. Short chapters fall into thematic clusters exploring complex ecologies of skill, collaborative learning and the microstructure of embodied coordination, followed by commentaries from leading scholars in performance studies and cognitive science. Each contribution highlights unique features of the performance ecology, equipping performance makers, students and researchers with the theoretical, methodological and practical inspiration to delve deeper into their own embodied practices and critical thinking.

This book is about joint intelligence in action. It brings together scholarship in performance studies, cognitive science, sociology, literature, anthropology, psychology, architecture, philosophy and sport science to ask how tightly knit collaboration works. Contributors apply innovative methodologies to detailed case studies of martial arts, social interaction, freediving, site-specific artworks, Body Weather, human-AI music composition, Front-of-House at Shakespeare's Globe, acrobatics and failing at handstands. In each investigation, performance and theory are mutually revealing, informative and captivating. Short chapters fall into thematic clusters exploring complex ecologies of skill, collaborative learning and the microstructure of embodied coordination, followed by commentaries from leading scholars in performance studies and cognitive science. Each contribution highlights unique features of the performance ecology, equipping performance makers, students and researchers with the theoretical, methodological and practical inspiration to delve deeper into their own embodied practices and critical thinking.

This book follows a physically disabled researcher's journey from stigmatized embodiment on her way to creating accessible storytelling performances. These unique performances function not only as traditional, peer-reviewed forms of critical qualitative research, but also as ‘narrative teaching productions’ that guide students and their audiences in the pursuit of social justice and equality. The book begins by developing the author's personal standpoint, and provides an evocative discussion of the multiple perceptions and identities experienced by those with disabled bodies. It negotiates how performance research can be created and conducted within the confines of course learning objectives, moves through complications encountered in research design and data collection, and explores a range of insightful responses from community members, social activists, and performance critics, as well as more traditional academic audiences. Critical autoethnographic personal narratives, performance scripts, and poetry are used to illuminate struggles over legitimate methodological practice and storytelling performance pedagogy. Each chapter confronts the fear of mortality that presses us to stigmatize those who remind us of our inescapably vulnerable embodiments and offers hope for an inclusive, adaptable culture. The book will be compelling reading for scholars in Performance Studies, Disability Studies, Cultural Studies, Narrative Methodology, Ethnography, Higher Education, Autoethnography, Creative Nonfiction and everyone interested embodiment and/or storytelling for social change. Please visit www.uncwstorytelling.org/chapter-summaries-1 to access supplementary material for the book.

In this book, educator-actor-playwright-director Elizabeth Hess offers systematic and original explorations in performance technique. This hybrid approach is a fusion of physical theater modalities culled from Western practices (Psycho-physical actions, Viewpoints) Eastern practices (Butoh, Kundalini yoga) and related performance disciplines (Mask, Puppetry). Behavioral, physiological and psychological ‘states of being’ are engaged to unlock impulses, access experience and enlarge the imagination. Through individual, partnered and collective explorations, actors uncover a character’s essence and level of consciousness, their energy center and body language, and their archetype and relationship to universal themes. Magic (to pretend, as if), Metaphor (to compare, as like) and Myth (to pattern after, as in) provide the foundation for generating transformative, empathetic and expansive artistic expression. Explorations can be adapted to character work, scene study and production, including original/devised work and established text, to illuminate singular and surprising work through collaborative creativity that is inventive, inclusive and alive.

Towards Embodied Performance invites directors and other generative performance makers to experiment with making their own original, visually stunning, sonically immersive, and physically rigorous embodied performance. Through historical context, the author’s 30-plus years of experience, and original interviews with leading theatre artists, this book sets the stage for a new generation of artists building boundary-breaking work. Directors are often categorized into one of only two frameworks: the Stanislavskian director, whose method is based on text analysis and character wants and needs, and the “auteur” director, whose work might focus on visual spectacle at the expense of text or character objectives. This book argues that the director of embodied performance fuses these two approaches, acting as the author of the event. In Part I, readers will explore the core elements of embodied performance – space, time, body, language, and action – through a lens that bridges traditional directing methodology with experimental, devised, collaborative theatre-making. Part II provides examples of this embodied practice by multi-disciplinary artists in visual and sound installation, video and film, dance-theatre, and new music/opera, including such artists as Shirin Neshat, James Turrell, Bill T. Jones, Janet Cardiff, Okwui Okpokwasili, William Kentridge, and Heather Christian. Part III suggests creative prompts and exercises for performance makers to engage the visual, physical, textual, and sonic in compositional storytelling on stage. Towards Embodied Performance is an invaluable resource for theatre directors, devisers, and generative artists at all levels from students to teachers, from early-career to mid-career artists. Directors, actors, choreographers, designers, composers, writers, scholars, and engaged audience members can all use this text to explore collaboratively created performance that invites its audience into the ripest version of the present moment.

The use of computers has continued to increase within interactive performance over the last 25 years, evolving the need for understanding performer system interaction. Performers in the disciplines of Music, Dance, and Theatre produce works incorporating autonomous computer systems programmed to "listen" and contribute material. Interaction with such systems commonly relies on computers sensing the performer's physical and/or sonic gesture. However, this sense-respond model does not easily accommodate the concept of intuition, which fosters the development of performer trust, synchronization and collaboration within interaction. Performance practitioners interact using embodied-knowledge that is developed through training and experience of the body. Although it is an innate part of performing, intuition is seldom considered and has been under theorized and under-researched in the context of performer-system interaction models. Intuition as a parameter of interaction has significant relevance to the interaction between an autonomous system and a performer. I have conducted three case studies on performers' sense of intuition within interactive performance by designing and testing an interactive system that provides information cues of the system's internal state. The system's intention to act and the quality of gesture will was explored by simulating breath as an intentional cue. By altering the timbre and duration of the simulated breath, the system can indicate the quality of intended gesture. The model was evaluated by collecting performer interview data, third person observation of performer interaction, and first-person accounts of the system designer testing the system as a part of the design process. The information resulting from this study can be used to further develop models of interaction with autonomous generative systems in performance.

The contributors to this volume adopt a socio-cultural approach to understanding collaborative creativity across a wide range of domains such as music composition, business, school-based creative writing and art, fashion design, theatre production and web-based academic collaborations. Central to the socio-cultural approach to creativity is the recognition that it is a fundamentally social process. It thus follows that, if we are to understand and characterize human creativity, we need to examine the cultural, institutional and interpersonal contexts that support and sustain such activity. We also need to understand how cultural tools and technologies resource collaborative creativity. The volume offers a distinctive and valuable contribution to this growing field of scholarship by presenting new empirical findings, reviews and critiques of existing literature together with suggestions for how this field should develop.