This session explores insights from neurology and artistic practice, and how they connect. Through discussion and practical demonstration, Iain McGilchrist (psychiatrist and author of The Master and his Emissary) and Patsy Rodenburg (Head of Voice, Guildhall School) address questions of attention, empathy, trust, decision-making and leadership, and how these function in contemporary contexts and cultures of learning.

Iain McGilchrist will introduce some of his essential ideas from his book The Master and his Emissary about the paradoxes of the two hemispheres of the brain. He and Patsy Rodenburg will then enter into dialogue on several related themes (such as ‘types of attention’, ‘tension and the dynamic of in between’, ‘creativity as cleaning a space, clearing away what is unnecessary’, ’embracing the paradox of control and loss of control, knowing and not knowing’) with demonstrations of how they become embodied in the act of speaking and realizing text on stage.