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This chapter ("Movement and Animation") examines the fundamental structures of self-movement and external movement perception. It considers the centrality of movement to animacy and the perception of animacy in living and non-living elements of one's environment. Humans have a perceptual predisposition to recognize biological movement and involve themselves kinesthetically with movements that fall within a repertoire of familiar sensorimotor experience. The chapter applies these insights to theatre by exploring the phenomenology of animacy in performing objects and the kinesthetic dynamics of stillness and movement with actors onstage. The sections include discussions of Sandglass Theater's puppet play about dementia, D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks; the statue scene in Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale; and Samuel Beckett's Footfalls.

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-91794-8_2

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