SHIFT SUMMARY: Value and efficacy in the arts are challenged by an applied theatre model that stresses the aesthetic value of the neuro-divergent autistic imagination and seeks to derive mutual affect between performer and participant.
ABSTRACT: This proposal emerges from the AHRC funded project Imagining Autism led by the Centre for Cognition Kinesthetics and Performance (University of Kent) and addresses value and efficacy in the arts. It asks questions about the ‘value’ of a purely affective, aesthetic experience in relation to the ‘efficacy’ of applied theatre models.
An interdisciplinary team are investigating the autistic imagination via affect where performance creates conditions for constructing and changing experiences. ‘Intermediality’ becomes the liminal space between realities, where performed experiences create an empathetic encounter both affective and ‘affecting’, a site ‘where felt emotion, memory, desire and understanding come together’ (Denzin 2003:23).
The shift confronts the ethics, purposes and perceptions of applied theatre practice in health and educational contexts. Recent research by Simon Baron-Cohen (2007) foregrounds the importance of ‘systemising empathy’ in developing ‘interventions’ for autistic children. The Kent project develops affective interventions through the creation of immersive interactive environments, using a range of intermedial methods such as puppetry, light, sound, projection and live feed. A pilot project (Autumn 2009) confounded some of the myths of autism: participants engaged imaginatively and creatively, responding particularly flexibly to dramaturgical structures and developing their own personas within these frameworks. This has led both us and the health and educational professionals we are working with to re-evaluate perceptions of the autistic imagination. Moreover the children demonstrated an embodied and empathetic engagement in this dynamic process. This shift will draw on the Imagining Autism project, which began on October1st 2011, and create an immersive environment, taking delegates through it in small groups, exploring the neuro-divergent imagination. It links to a panel discussion entitled ‘What Price Participation?: Agency, Ethics, Aesthetics and Impact in Participatory Performance’, with papers/input from Dr Nicola Shaughnessy, Dr Melissa Trimingham, Prof. Robert Shaughnessy, Dr Rosemary Klich and Dr Pablo Pakula.
The environment holds up to 12 people, spending around 10/15 minutes in it. Documentation of a performance will be projected alongside the original puppets, masked figures and props, and performers will be on hand to guide delegates through the experience.
REFERENCES
Baron-Cohen, S. (2007) ‘The empathising-systemising theory of autism: implications for education’ Tizard Learning Disability Review, 14 (3) 2009 Pier Professional
Denzin, N. (2003) Performance ethnography: critical pedagogy and the politics of culture Sage