2. Uncontained: Stimming and Neurodivergent Creativity
Hybrid
Meeting ID: 943 0444 2594
Passcode: 592732
Panellists: Aby Watson, Kate Fox, Sean Yeager
Chair: Catherine Smale
Aby Watson | Encountering Stimprovisation
Abstract: Stimming is a practice of repetitive movements, behaviours, and/or vocalisations to self-soothe, regulate, or stimulate to bring oneself into balance. We all stim, but for neurodivergent people who process the senses differently, stimming is particularly important for wellbeing.
Stimprovisation is a practice of sensory-seeking improvisation, discovered and coined by Dr Aby Watson during her doctoral research. Developed as a somatic practice for neurodivergent people, Stimprovisation acts to liberate neurodivergent embodiments through a choreographic practice of ‘unmasking’, enacting a doing of self-love and care, as well as an embodied form of neuroqueer resistance through performance.
In this short performative and (self)stimulating presentation, neuroqueer choreographer Dr Watson will share and embody her process of stimprovisation: sensory-seeking improvisation through practices of movement (stimdance), object (stimplements), and voice (sensinging), directed by the sensorial curiosity of the neurodivergent bodymind. Through her rhythmic, repetitive, and sensorial performing presence with voice, movement and object, spectators will encounter live stimprovisation through stimulating sensory input, whilst receiving an outline of the practice and the philosophy underpinning it. Embodied knowledge of the neuroqueer body meets linguistic communication, enabling both verbal and non-verbal modes of encountering Dr Aby Watson’s Stimprovisation practice.
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Kate Fox | Bigger On The Inside: Meta Commentary On Stimming, layering and unfiltering as neuroqueer methodology
Abstract: This performance offers a meta-commentary on extracts from my spoken word touring show Bigger on the Inside, which explores critical neurodiversity through the lens of Doctor Who. I demonstrate how the performance illustrates stimming as a neurodivergent method and creates situated neurodivergent-affirming spaces.
By incorporating audience invitations to stim,the performance transforms spectators into what Jacques Rancière defines as "emancipated spectators" – active participants who are "both distant spectators and active interpreters of the spectacle offered to them" (Rancière, 2009) This collaborative stimming, which echoes my own stimming with words, disrupts traditional performance boundaries and creates a communal neurodivergent experience.
The presentation challenges the concept of "relaxed performances," which often create tension through their cursory invitations to audience members. I also propose "performing unfiltered" as an emancipatory technique that embraces neurodivergent expression rather than merely accommodating it.
As Nick Walker notes, "Neuroqueering is what we do when we actively subvert, transcend, or rewrite the neuronormative scripts that have been forced upon us" (Walker, 2021).Through looping, layering, and deliberate creation of neurodivergent-affirming space, Bigger on the Inside embodies neuroqueering as practice – transforming the theatrical space into a TARDIS-like environment that is, indeed, bigger on the inside, accommodating the fullness of neurodivergent experience without constraint.
This extract demonstrates how performance can move beyond representation to become an active site of neurodivergent community-building and emancipatory practice.
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Sean Yeager (Online) | Neurowhat? A meditation and talk poem
Abstract: (Edited transcript) Hello! My name is Sean Yeager, and I am here to propose a Talk Poem to you about the subject of Neuro-What? Full disclosure: I probably won't be able to answer that question. But the goal here is really to just ask it in more detail, I suppose. A talk poem is a medium developed by David Anton, where you just kind of ramble at the people that you're with. It's very interpersonal because you connect with them, the folks that you know. It has a lot to do with Julia Miele Rodas's articulation of... oh, what's the word... 'apostrophe as an autistic mode of communication' as well as the notion of 'syncopation'.
In case you can't tell, I'm delivering a talk poem right now. If you're a little worried about the idea of me showing up and just talking about things without really knowing what I'm saying, I can at least promise you that I do have a lot of experience with this. At the last two Modern Language Association meetings I delivered talk poems that were quite nice. But, as you can tell, I'm sort of winging it right now, and I would be during this presentation, but that's part of the fun.
Talk poetry gives you the ability to really just speak to whatever is most relevant in the moment to that particular audience. And honestly, it's a lot of fun. We can really just spend some time just hanging out and thinking about this question of Neuro-What?
It will bring in my teaching practices with regard to the courses I've taught on neurodiversity. It'll probably bring in my research on aesthetic kinship which reframes autism as a mode of kinship as opposed to a diagnosis, and the special issue that I am co-editing with Suhyun Cho that will expand on this notion with regard to intracultural readings of autism and neurodiversity in general.
And then also, it's probably going to spill over onto some interviews I did with autistic people in summer 2023. They came in from, I think, 4 continents. And we just talked about sci-fi books and how they reflect our understanding of time.
Anyway, I've got about 15 seconds left. Thank you for your time and consideration. I'd love to be a part of this conference on critical neurodiversity studies. Thank you.
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Speaker Bios:
Aby Watson: Dr Aby Watson is a neuroqueer artist, choreographer, performer, academic, and activist working in contemporary performance and knowledge exchange, hyperfocusing on radical neurodiversity. With special interests in stimming, sensoriality, ritual, and consciousness, Aby's choreographic sensibility embodies non-neuronormative potentialities through rhythm, repetition and togetherness. Holding a PhD in Neuroqueer Choreography from Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and University of Saint Andrews, she is published in journals including ‘Choreographic Practices’ and will have a chapter in Nick Walker’s upcoming anthology of neuroqueer theory. Aby is the founding director of the Scottish Neurodiverse Performance Network, an organisation supporting neurodivergent performing artists across Scotland.
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Kate Fox: Dr Kate Fox, she/her. Independent scholar. Freelance stand-up poet and Radio 4 regular. Shows/books include “Bigger on the Inside” (a memoir of neurodiversity through a lens of Dr Who).PhD in performances of Northern class and gender in comedy (Uni of Leeds, 2018). Publications include: paper in Comedy Studies (2018), chapters in Comedy and the Politics of Representation (Routledge, 2018), Comedy and Critical Thought (Rowman and Littlefield, 2018).
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Sean Yeager: Sean Yeager earned their Ph.D. in English at The Ohio State University. Before joining OSU, Sean was an Assistant Professor of Physics at Pacific Northwest College of Art. Their data-driven visualizations of narratological temporal structures received the Paul Fourtier Prize for best paper by an emerging scholar at the 2019 Digital Humanities Conference. Their research on neurodivergent reading practices received honorable mention for the Nadal Prize at the 2022 International Conference on Narrative and their theorizations of neurodivergent experiences of time received honorable mention for the 2024 Bruns Prize from the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts.
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