The trained experience: A study on the relationship between meditation practices and the actor’s system of knowledge

This dissertation addresses the relationship between meditative and performative practices. It examines those meditative and spiritual techniques that have been used and explored in the work of the Theatre Reformers of the Twentieth century. The approach towards such investigation is going to open up throughout this analysis an argument for a layered system of relationships underneath the main subject under examination, i.e. the application of meditative and spiritual techniques within the actor training. The first layer concerns the relationship between the commonly named ‘hard science’, with a particular focus on cognitive neuroscience, and humanities. I will argue for a methodological exchange that can contribute to the validation of a practical ‘protocol’, such as the actor’s training. The other layer bears upon the reflection on Theory and Practice in the academic field of theatre studies. Notwithstanding the rising academic-scientific interest in the humanities towards practical approaches in the investigation of artistic phenomena, I shall claim that there is still not enough recognized ‘space’ in the field of theatre studies for practice-based researches. This dissertation hypothesizes that it is possible to bridge Theory and Practice by putting the accent on the differences of contributions that both parts can provide to academic research. Lastly, this study aims to analyze this system of relationships as stratified by filtering them through the notion of experience: the experience of meditation, in its technical, ecstatic, as well as cognitive aspects; the experience of the actor’s training.