Is the body a flesh-encased machine responding solely to the commands of our brain, or does the body actually help shape the mind?
Madeline McNeill's new multimedia show Bodies in Conversation explores this topic, also known as embodied cognition, through the use of music, theater, dance and film.
"It's the idea that the body is part of how we make sense of the world," McNeill says. "We're in this body and we're interacting with the world, and so our brain activity is shaped by bodily activity."
McNeill, a writer, trained opera singer and composer, originally planned to study premed in college, but eventually returned to music. She began incorporating techniques like massage, yoga and body mapping into her vocal practices, which spurred her to begin investigating how the body and mind are interconnected.
For example, McNeill explores the idea of what she calls core postures, or the idea that every emotion causes specific muscular contractions that result in different movements.
"If you cough for example, the stimulation could be like in your throat here, but there's contraction throughout the entire core," she says. "I would say that these are wired together to move together, and that has implications for the formation of emotions, and that feeds the process of cognition."
Bodies in Conversation features three works: a film titled So it Begins, McNeill's musical composition "The Underground," performed by four Spokane Symphony musicians and eight singers accompanied by live dance, and the short play Bodies in Conversation.
It's being performed at Hamilton Studio, a production center, event space and listening room in West Central Spokane. While owner Don Hamilton says he's held several live music performances in the space recently, Bodies in Conversation marks the first theater event to happen there.
"I'm reconfiguring the lighting so that it'll work basically like a theater," Hamilton says. "I'm really excited to see what Madeline's show is — it's unlike anything I've ever done or ever seen."
McNeill is starting the performance with an introduction to the embodied cognition concepts explored throughout the show, followed by gentle exercises to help the audience experience it themselves.
Next, the film So it Begins will play. McNeill acted in and wrote the music for it, collaborating with Factory Town founders Ellen Picken as producer and Rajah Bose as director. Created in 2020, So it Begins explores the concept of separation and transitioning out of it as the pandemic waned. Nicole Brianna, who also dances in "The Underground," stars alongside McNeill.
"It was about not being able to have physical contact or breath contact with people," McNeill says. "There's a barrier between us, like there's one point where I'm in this plexiglass box and we can't touch each other."
Due to pandemic restrictions at the time, McNeill asked all the musicians who played the score she composed for the film to send her their recordings from home. She pieced them together, recording her own vocals over the resulting composition.
"That's a bit representative of how everything was online, and we weren't in physical space with each other," she says. "That will be contrasted by a short, kind of interlude piece where I'm going to be just singing a little jazzy solo for a couple minutes."
Next, "The Underground" is performed with eight classical singers — Bee Aaron, Kristen Nauditt, Amanda Glover, Natalie Marssdorf, Brendan McEachran, Jerrod Phelps, Erik Contzius, Maximiano Mendez. They're joined by four classical musicians: Heather Johnson on flute, Lynne Feller-Marshall on bassoon, John Marshall on cello and Kim Plewniak on bass.
McNeill conducts the musicians, but rather than facing them, she'll face the audience. Brianna, a burlesque and cabaret dancer who performs under the stage name Miss Nikki B, dances in front of McNeill.
The performance concludes with the play Bodies in Conversation, performed by McNeill and Contzius.
"It's poetic dialogue where a woman and a man are talking about the body, talking about experiences that develop with being a body, a male body or female body," McNeill says.
The play is only 20 minutes, but touches on various facets of embodied cognition, such as consciousness as a body process.
"When did this body dissociation start happening?" McNeill says. "When do we start thinking of ourselves not as bodies? When did we start to just immerse ourselves in ideas and think that who we are has nothing to do with our body in the flesh?"
There are seven chants sung in duet throughout the play, each accompanied by cello and bass.
To conclude the evening, a brief Q&A lets audience members ask the artist questions about embodied cognition concepts.
"I do feel that there are a lot of implications to thinking that the body shapes in mind," she says. "If emotions include movement, are there ways to move our emotions through arts to improve and to address mental health? Can singing be a healing modality, can acting be a healing modality, can playing an instrument be a healing modality?"
Although each piece of Bodies in Conversation was originally created as stand-alone projects, McNeill wove them together into a loose narrative.
"It's touching on a lot of things: a sense of connection to how the body shapes the mind, inspiration for different artists coming together for an original piece, and what's possible when different artists come together to collaborate," she says. "It's themes of how the body shapes the mind, all expressed in art and performance." ♦
Bodies in Conversation • Sat, Feb. 24 at 7 pm • Sold out • Hamilton Studio • 1427 W. Dean Ave. • madelinemcneill.com
