Short abstract:
This paper will explore the implications of incorporating performance practices, kinesthetic exercises, and aesthetic experiences in university teaching and learning as a means of exploring and remembering abstract theoretical concepts in art and culture theory.

Long abstract:
Findings in the fields of neuroscience and cognitive science suggest that our mind and consciousness are inherently embodied. According to this perspective everything we can learn and know is related to our embodied interactions with the world. Findings in these scientific fields also suggest that most of our thoughts and thinking processes are unconscious, and that abstract concepts, to a wide extend, are metaphorical. These ideas belong to the embodied cognition paradigm in cognitive science and lead us to the philosophical paradigm of experientialism. According to this paradigm human beings learn primarily through personal experience and embodied interactions with the world. This leads to the idea that different kinds of physical exercises, metaphorical actions, and aesthetic experiences might have a potential for reinforcing theoretical learning processes. This perspective invites us to reconsider what role the body can play in relation to theoretical learning.

The creative design process of a performance lecture implies a constant oscillation between theoretical concepts and different kinds of performance practices, between research-led practice and practice-led research. From the perspective of the embodied cognition paradigm the process of designing a performance lecture becomes an appropriate means of understanding and handling abstract theory as well as a means of exploring performance as an art form. Performance practice becomes a way of scaffolding theoretical learning processes and theoretical reflections become a way of scaffolding physical actions.

In this paper I will explore the design process of a performance lecture as a learning process particularly in relation to the embodied interactions of the process. I will present examples from my own teaching practice, and reflect on the results of this kind of learning processes according to the studies that I have conducted in this field, in collaboration with students in my courses.