Tan, Hansel
(2024)
The Art of Transformation: Performance Pedagogy, Embodied Cognition, and Metamorphosis as Method.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Decades of converging evidence from Neuroimaging, Behavioral Studies, and Cognitive Science point towards the embodied, extended, embedded, and enactive affordances of cognition, challenging traditional models of Mind/Body dualism. In the context of performance, studies from Embodied Cognition (EC) suggest that kinesthetic alterity induces transposed states of being, availing actors to dramatic possibilities otherwise not apparent when rendered through their daily neurophysiological selves. Despite these advancements, BA and BFA curricula in the United States demonstrate stubbornly persistent Cartesian divides, segregated along classical fault lines at levels of institutional conceptualization, categorization, and instruction. Taking scholars Rick Kemp and Vladimir Mirodan’s definition of “transformative acting” as a recursive process of dynamic self-repatterning that stimulates cognitive, perceptual, and affective modulation, this thesis seeks to investigate how a sustained conversation between EC and Performance Pedagogy may enrich and augment actor training via integrated somatic techniques, as undertaken by the creation of a 15-week Liberal Arts undergraduate BA course entitled “The Art of Transformation” (AOT) at the University of Pittsburgh. Drawing from Philosophy, Neuroscience, EC, Phenomenology, Gesture Studies, Affect Theory, Linguistics, Metaphor Theory, and Cultural Criticism, I identify key concepts and takeaways for “transformative acting,” and demonstrate how these principles are embedded in the praxis of Rudolph Laban, Jacques Lecoq, Michael Chekhov, and Richard Schechner’s Rasabox exercises. Weaving these practitioners into a semester-long learning scaffold, I outline the implementation, progression, and learnings from the course progression, concluding with suggestions for future iterations of AOT towards more integrative curricula. By inviting the student performer to explore diversionary and dynamic self-patterns as aesthetic epistemology, as well as investigating how embodied research and its schematization may be variously applied to devising, monologues, and partnered scenes, AOT endeavors to equip students with a tacit archive of kinesthetic schema, enhanced neurosomatic competencies, and procedural know-how to enact their own feats of transformation, onstage and off.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
| Creators | Email | Pitt Username | ORCID  |
|---|
| Tan, Hansel | | | |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
23 April 2024 |
| Approval Date: |
27 August 2024 |
| Submission Date: |
9 August 2024 |
| Access Restriction: |
2 year -- Restrict access to University of Pittsburgh for a period of 2 years. |
| Number of Pages: |
391 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Theater Arts |
| Degree: |
MFA - Master of Fine Arts |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
performance, pedagogy, embodied cognition, neuroscience, acting, actor training, rudolph laban, jacques lecoq, michael chekhov, richard schechner, rasabox, rasaboxes, psychological gesture, affective action, active analysis, embodied research, kinesthesia, kinesthetic acting, embodied acting, transformative acting, transformational acting |
| Date Deposited: |
27 Aug 2024 11:39 |
| Last Modified: |
27 Aug 2024 11:39 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/46904 |
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