Performance and Mindfulness Symposium attracts global audience
Tue, 21 Jun 2016 13:31:00 BST
The first issue of new Journal of Performance and Mindfulness will include articles based on proceedings of the symposium
► Keynote speaker Nicolás Núñez is pictured with the Huddersfield symposium organiser Dr Deborah Middleton
THE meditative technique known as mindfulness – derived from Buddhism – has been widely adopted throughout the world, and it is proving to be of special value to creative performers. The University of Huddersfield has developed into a globally significant centre for research into its possibilities.
The University is the home of a project named Mindfulness and Performance and has now staged a highly-successful four-day Performance and Mindfulness Symposium that attracted expert speakers, performers and participants from more than ten countries, including Australia, Thailand, South Africa, Brazil, Mexico and the USA.
The Drama, Theatre and Performance department within the University of Huddersfield’s School of Music Humanities and Media is home to a Centre for Psychophysical Performance Research, and it will soon publish the new Journal of Performance and Mindfulness. Its first issue – due out in early 2017 – will include articles based on proceedings of the symposium.
◄ Professor Franc Chamberlain (top) pictured with Dr Daniel Pla
Co-director of the CPPR is Dr Deborah Middleton and she will co-edit the new journal with Professor Franc Chamberlain, alongside visiting researcher Dr Daniel Pla, a Brazilian lecturer in acting. The three were also members of the team that organized the Performance and Mindfulness Symposium.
“It was a really wonderful event,” said Dr Middleton, who explained that it had its origins in a smaller-scale conference that took place at the University in 2013.
“That gave us confidence that there was enough interest in the field and when we organised the latest conference we were really impressed by the number of responses that we had,” she said. “In fact, we couldn’t find space in the programme for everything that we were offered.”
The stated aim of the symposium was to “bring together artists, practitioners and researchers with an interest in integrating or otherwise relating performance and mindfulness modalities. We hope that in these days together we can begin to establish a sense of what might be described as an emerging field of performance and mindfulness, paying attention to the traditions and lineages that inform our work, and to the potentials and challenges of mindfulness-based performance practices”.
The programme included 15 papers and 13 workshop sessions – covering topics that included contemplative dance practice, improvisation and meditation and mindful acting – plus a series of three evening performances.
The eminent international keynote speakers were Nicolás Núñez on Theatre as a Secret Source; Cassiano Sydow, on Buddhist Meditation and the Contemplative Training of the Performer; Lee Worley on The Theatre of Chogyam Trungpa – an influential Tibetan meditation master; and Etzel Cardeña , whose address was titled In monkey-mind’s jungle: Experimental research on mind-wandering.
Dr Middleton introduces University of Huddersfield drama students to mindfulness and finds that they are highly responsive to the relaxation and enhanced focus that it offers, although she and Dr Pla emphasise that these are only two aspects of the practice, even when it is taken out of its original spiritual context.
The two will co-present at a conference taking place in York entitled Translating Buddhism, where they will discuss ways in which theatre and performance practitioners have adopted Buddhist practices.
“There is no single relationship between mindfulness and performance,” said Dr Middleton. “But there are clear psychological benefits, and mindfulness has an effect on creativity and presence – things that actors are very interested in.”
