Over the past few years, I have put out postings on - and for - international autism day/week/month: sometimes whole series of postings. Here is a sample one. I have done this while seeking to convey that autism - a way of being - is not just about a specific period of time. It's always. But I have also noted that this time in March-April allows an opportunity to reflect and share.
On this year's Autism Day, I was in Athens. I should perhaps write a posting on this visit as it had a deep impact on me, including as I sat - for probably two hours - in my special place on the slopes of Mount Lykavittos as the light went down over the city.
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| On Mount Lykavittos - the rock in Athens dropped by Athena as the ancient local myth went |
I was in Athens to give a paper at the Swedish Institute at Athens' ancient religion seminar on Athena as a dancer. This paper was extending research I've done over some years - well decades - into Athena by looking at dance and other types movement connected with this deity.
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| Title slide of my presentation at the Swedish Institute - when I write up the paper, the content of the images should become apparent |
What I had found as I was preparing the paper - as I had when I gave an earlier version at a conference in Coimbra last year - was just how far my research has been informed by what I have been doing on autism and classical myth.
On the one hand, this is because everything I do is shaped by a neurodivergent way of looking at ancient evidence, as I have been increasingly realising over the years.
It is also because of the paper's specific content. For what I proposed was an approach to ancient dance that is informed by Dance Movement Theory.
This is a theory - and practice - that can be used by, and with, anyone whether neurodivergent or neurtypical. However, as with Dramatherapy (which I've written about previously on this blog, beginning here) there is particular potential for connecting with autism: for example, as a means for autistic people to explore autistic minds and bodies, and to open up new ways to envisage the body in space and how movement and cognition correlate.
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| Slide from my presentation in Athens on Dance Movement Therapy as defined by the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK |
As I was giving the paper, I stressed that I was very much just getting going with my research. I wondered, too, whether, as someone who is very much not qualified in Dance Movement Therapy, I should be doing anything more than expressing my curiosity about what it entails.
Then something happened in the question time straight after the paper that made me think again.
I often find transitioning from a paper I've delivered to the discussion hard - I have given my all. I am exhausted. Answering specific questions can be a challenge. But one of the questions this time - from someone present online (this was a hybrid session) - turned out to be from someone whose connections with the topic floored me: in a good way.
For one thing, she explained that she studied at Roehampton, the university where I am now an emeritus professor and whose artefacts have been key to my autism work culminating to date here. More than this, she shared that she is a Dance Movement Therapist. There is more still: she explained that is a member of a Non Profit Organisation called the Athena Foundation.
So there was me arguing for Athena to be explored in relation to Dance Movement Therapy when Dance Movement Therapists already see the potential of Athena to encapsulate the therapy.
I am hoping that we will be able to connect! Watch this space: hopefully...
Soon I'll share other experiences during Autism Month, including a SUPERB paper I zoomed into by Cora Beth Fraser on autism, classics and labyrinths last week...
