ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a key transformative experience (for student and teacher/author) in the devised performance of a Shakespeare sonnet by an acting student with dyslexia. The chapter analyses his breakthrough and unique performance, through his creation and manipulation of handwritten signs, mapped physio-spatial patterns, and place stations, directly related to his interpretation of the text. The words of the text were grounded through an extended thinking through and interaction with his devised tools within the environment. His breakthrough in overcoming his dyslexia is analyzed, drawing from theories of cognitive science, embodied cognition, and extended mind theory. His overcoming of problems to do with language and written words, employment of artefacts, and thinking through actions assisted his comprehension, speaking, and memory of a Shakespeare sonnet in performance. This chapter demonstrates how his devised method revealed his abilities, generating an innovative performance style, whereas a conventional teaching approach had accentuated a disability. Finally, research regarding neural reuse in the brain, taken from the fields of experimental psychology and neuroscience, is discussed, with a view of dyslexia possibly being compensated through an overlapping of multisensory neural networks of perception.
