The Actor, Image, and Action: Acting and Cognitive Neuroscience (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780415774178)

The Actor, Image and Action is a 'new generation' approach to the craft of acting; the first full-length study of actor training using the insights of cognitive neuroscience. In a brilliant reassessment of both the practice and theory of acting, Rhonda Blair examines the physiological relationship between bodily action and emotional experience. In doing so she provides the latest step in Stanislavsky's attempts to help the actor 'reach the unconscious by conscious means'.

Recent developments in scientific thinking about the connections between biology and cognition require new ways of understanding many elements of human activity, including:

• imagination
• emotion
• memory
• physicality
• reason.

The Actor, Image and Action looks at how these are in fact inseparable in the brain's structure and function, and their crucial importance to an actor's engagement with a role. The book vastly improves our understanding of the actor's process and is a must for any actor or student of acting.

Author: Rhonda Blair
ISBN-10: 0415774179
ISBN-13: 9780415774178
Publisher: Routledge
Language: English
Published: 01/01/2008
Pages: 158
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.45lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.30w x 0.50d

Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 11/01/2008 pg. 256