Music, Medicine and Dance - exploring what it means to perform

This proposal brings together a network of practitioners, academics, and educators from music, dance, fine arts, medicine,
and science to investigate the role of cross-disciplinary approaches to performance. It will explore what it means to perform
in different fields and will map the "pathway to performance" across disciplines to increase our understanding of the journey
from novice to expert performer. Identifying the challenges that practitioners across different disciplines encounter, and
struggle to address in isolation, will allow us to develop novel solutions drawing on the diverse expertise of the network.
Areas of initial investigation will include physicality and embodied knowledge, engaging audiences, managing performance
anxiety, and developing a healthy professional identity as a performer.
At first glance scientists and doctors may not obviously be "performers", at least not in the same sense as musicians and
dancers. But on closer inspection we see that much of the same expertise is required for their practice. For instance,
procedural knowledge - how to apply what you know in order to do - is essential in artistic practice and craft-based skills.
Artists integrate subject matter knowledge with practical skills, dexterity, emotional connection and effective
communication. Combined, these skills represent the craftsmanship of performance. Medicine, though often perceived to
be a scientific field, sits at an intersection where applied science meets craftmanship and performance. Clinicians must have sound knowledge of disease and how to treat it. But, more than this, doctors too must integrate this knowledge with
practical skills, dexterity, emotional connection and effective communication. To stop bleeding from an artery, a surgeon
must use their anatomical knowledge to identify the problem and their practical expertise to deal with it (tie the vessel with a
suture). But they cannot do this alone. Surgery depends on team work. In an emergency, a surgical team must work
together at breakneck speed in a confined area around the operating table. Their rapid expert movements in this confined
space have a choreographic elegance and precision. Yet this co-ordination of movement develops over time - though
expected, it is not explicitly taught. Clinicians may benefit greatly from perspectives used in the artistic "pathway to
performance". At the same time, we will identify aspect of performance development in dance and music which may benefit
from clinical perspectives by viewing arts and music through a medical lens.
Inspecting the practices of other disciplines brings into focus the unseen expertise behind our own. Recognising and
supporting the development of these unseen skills has the potential to transform the perspective of practitioners, from
learner to professional, and support their journey along the pathway to performance.
This proposal is a joint initiative between the Centre for Engagement and Simulation Science at Imperial College London,
the Royal College of Music/Imperial Centre for Performance Science and the Centre for Dance Research at Coventry
University. It will bring together academics and educators from these three institutions as well as non-academic expert
practitioners. Members will exchange ideas in a series of six themed workshops. They will identify aspects within their own
craft of greatest potential benefit to other disciplines. Drawing on this network, core-project members will develop and pilot
cross-disciplinary educational interventions aimed at supporting students on their "pathway to performance". A mixed
methods approach will investigate the value of this type of learning. Outcomes from the research will be disseminated
publicly and at an institutional level to enhance our understanding of cross-disciplinary education and promote the
development of further cross-disciplinary initiatives.