At Azara Ballet, dancers are not expected to make eye contact with directors and choreographers. If company members need an impromptu break from the stage lights during rehearsals, they take one. They also receive clear instructions on hair and makeup well in advance of performances.
The priority to Azara it’s the health of the dancers. Founded in 2022 by dancers Kate Flowers and Martin Roosaare, both of whom are autistic (and married), the company, based in Sarasota and Bradenton, Florida, is a haven for neurodivergent artists. (The company is made up of 10 dancers, all non-neurodivergent.)
“When I dance,” Flowers said, “as long as it’s in a good environment and a safe space, expression through nonverbal movement is something that helps me a lot.”
Azara fills a gap in the dance world: the need for spaces where people with autism, ADHD, or other conditions falling under the broad term “neurodivergent” can freely experience the art form. Evidence, both anecdotal and empirical, suggests that there is a deep connection between dance and these neurological disorders. This relationship has become an area of growing interest for researchers, artists and performing arts organizations. over the last few years.
In November, Azara gathered for a rebroadcast of her “Voice of Azara” program in the black box theater where the show would soon take place. The atmosphere of the theater was both active – dancers warming up, reviewing steps, discussing – and calm: there was temperate lighting, pleasantly fresh air and, among the performers, a seemingly innate awareness of the volume of their voice.
To begin the rehearsal, Roosaare gave the dancers an overview of the program for the next three hours. Then, they went through the four pieces – all written by members of the company – before being given grades. While the dancers performed, the music was never extremely loud and corrections were never shouted.
But most of the time, rehearsal didn’t seem much different than a small dance company. But what makes “all the difference,” said autistic dancer Rebecca Kimsey, is the level of humanity and consideration in the studio.
“Martin and Kate were very tolerant and very understanding of everything that was going on,” she said, “like I was having a day where I woke up with a migraine from overstimulation.”
She added: “If we’re in rehearsal and things are moving really fast, they still don’t shout corrections, which can alarm or surprise people if they’re focused. »
Flowers said she always felt drawn to dance. “Especially with autism, it’s really helpful to have structure,” she said. “Dance really brings that. It makes sense why I was drawn to dance and why I kept coming back to it.
Research validates these experiences. The results suggest that dance may be particularly well suited to complement the strengths linked to autism or certain neurological diseases, while alleviating certain difficulties.
Dr. Jessica Eccles, a researcher at Brighton and Sussex Medical School in England, studies how certain conditions overlap with hypermobility (a greater than normal range of movement) and creativity. “Attention to detail, memory, passions, outside-the-box thinking — all of these things are probably useful assets for dancers,” Eccles said. “A high proportion of dancers may be neurodivergent, but this may not be recognized; they may not have a diagnosis.
Julia Basso, director of Virginia Tech’s Embodied Brain Lab, found further evidence of the link between dance and neurodivergence by measuring brain waves. Among a group of musical theater performers, most with autism, dancing and performance was shown to increase intracerebral synchronization – that is, neural connections in a child’s brain. artist – as well as inter-brain synchronization, or connections made between multiple people. This suggests that dance may play an important role in areas such as social connections and decreasing anxiety, Basso said, which are common challenges.
Roosaare and Flowers observed the positive effects of dance on a group of autistic preschool students enrolled in Azara’s atypical dance initiative. Students normally have trouble concentrating at school during the day, Roosaare said, “but when it comes to dancing, they are always attentive and engaged.”
While Azara takes a dancer-first approach to inclusivity, most companies focus primarily on the audience. The New York City Ballet, for example, recently held a sensory performance of “The Nutcracker” and has another sensory event (a Balanchine triple bill) planned for May. Other companies have also implemented this practice, largely as part of the “Nutcracker” program. season.
“The audience felt welcomed, they felt supported, they didn’t feel judged,” Meghan Gentile, City Ballet’s associate director of education, said of a sensory performance at the last spring. “More and more discussions are happening about how to make all of our performances a little more accessible. There is this new perspective that has been placed on our work.
At Azara, all performances are designed with neurodiversity in mind. A similar approach is taken by the Lumberyard Center for Film and the Performing Arts, in New York, with its Seats on the Spectrum program, an accessibility program designed for easy implementation in movie theaters. The pilot, which debuted in October, is available at New Victory Theater, HERE Arts Center and Roundabout Theater Company.
Adrienne Willis, executive and artistic director of Lumberyard, said that “while segregated shows and segregated festivals are fantastic and reach so many people, they don’t reach enough of the population. She added that Lumberyard wanted to make accessibility “more economically viable for theaters.”
At many of these events, theatergoers are offered sensory kits (fidget toys, earplugs, noise-canceling headphones) as well as a visual and textual description of what to expect from their time at the theater. There are often designated, less crowded seating areas for neurodivergent concertgoers, and during the show, the house lights are never completely dimmed, the lighting and sound effects are toned down, and patrons are welcome to go and come according to their needs.
These changes may seem significant. But Azara dancer Kimsey said that when some of her friends attended these shows, “they said to me, ‘I barely notice the difference; I didn’t know it was a sensory day.
However, she added: “For those who need these changes, this is a lifeline. It connects you to something you might never be able to witness otherwise.
The next generation of dance artists is also developing tools to take neurodivergence into account. At the University of Southern California’s Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, Patrick Corbin, associate professor of dance practice, teamed up with a neuroscientist and occupational therapist, as well as neurodiverse theater artists, to create a course entitled Dance and neurodiversity/Autism.
By combining science, movement and community engagement, Corbin hopes students will learn how dance affects the brain and also better understand these conditions as a whole.
“We’re developing dance-based strategies, using all of these things, to see how we can learn about walking in someone else’s shoes,” Corbin said. “Instead of trying to pull autistic people into our world, maybe if we went into their world we could find a bridge to connection.”
As Azara rehearses, it’s obvious that connection is a goal. Each dance piece has a clear meaning or story, and the movements chosen by the choreographers are neither too opaque to understand nor so literal that they seem hackneyed. The dancers move with certainty, with a sense of abandon and fluidity; they are in their element.
“For me, choreography helps in terms of expression,” Roosaare said, “to be able to portray certain feelings, emotions and ideas that are normally a little harder to convey to people.”
“I feel like there are a lot of undiagnosed autistic people in the dance world who have found this as a means of expression.”