초록·
키워드
오류제보하기
These days, we are witnessing an outstanding scientific revolution called ‘cognitive science.’ Cognitive studies in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, and other disciplines have made a remarkable development in the past twenty years in understanding such cognitive areas as perception, memory, imagination, empathy, emotions, behavior, and meaning-making. In fact, cognitive science is replacing the dominant influences of Freudian psychoanalysis, behaviorism, and semiotics. Scholars in theatre and performance studies are beginning to apply these findings to their field. For the first time in South Korea, I explore the creative process of acting in terms of the new paradigm of cognitive science.
In this paper, using the cognitive lens, I look into Stanislavsky's ‘system’ and Brecht's ‘epic style acting’ and reconsider the usefulness of the actor training system as one of the ways of establishing the systematic and scientific actor training program in South Korea. In this paper, I introduce the succinct outline of cognitive science in order to engage the readers who are not quitely familiar with it to my study of science of acting. I apply ideas from cognitive science to illuminate the process of acting through the works of such cognitive scientists as Antonio Damasio, Joseph LeDoux, Gerald Edelman, Steven Pinker, George Lakoff, and Mark Johnson. Methodologically, I adopt interdisciplinary approaches to render a more fruitful discussion about Stanislavsky's system and Brecht's epic style acting. In this paper, I argue that we should not ignore the findings and discoveries of Stanislavsky's system and Brecht's epic style acting due to its old scientific paradigm. On the contrary, I assert, they should be reconstructed from the perspectives and prospects of cognitive science.
In the main body of the paper, first, adopting the discoveries and findings from cognitive science, I try to deconstruct the dichotomous division between art/science, body/mind, emotion/reason, consciousness/unconsciousness, inside/ outside of the body. After I postulate the cognitive foundation for actor's bodymind, then, I examine the important conceptual tools of Stanislavsky's system and Brecht's epic style acting: character, role, given circumstances, imagination, attention, empathy, projection, dual consciousness, gestus, etc. At the end, I investigate how these discrete acting methods can converge on the troubled issue of the actor's exploration of creative processes in acting. While I explain these cognitive concepts, I suggest various practical training methods and procedures, which I have tried from the discoveries and findings of cognitive science. Ultimately, I hope that this paper opens up a space for a dialogue about the systematic and scientific actor training programs in South Korea.