Co-emergence: an art-full dance of inquiry into artists’ experiences of making art

ABSTRACT

This paper offers an account of how women and gender non-conforming people living with mind/body differences connected and changed during a project of creating a dramatic performance intended to shift understandings of disabilities and differences for various communities, including health professionals. Insights from interviews with artist participants are presented in three themes: collective unearthing, carefully bringing forth with others, and embracing the newly tangible. Our insight at this point is that disability-affirmative artistic processes create an inter- and intra-relational space that invites generative learning through self- and critical reflection.

KEYWORDS:

• Embodied difference
• devised theatre
• artful pedagogy
• disability arts practice

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gail J. Mitchell is Professor of Nursing at York University in Toronto, Canada. She collaborates with teams using research-based drama in order to critique the discourses and images portraying persons diagnosed with dementia and embodied difference. Dr. Mitchell and her collaborators offer models for relational, arts-based practices.

Carla Rice is Professor in the College of Social and Applied Human Sciences at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada. As Founding Director of Re•Vision: The Centre for Art and Social Justice and Principal Investigator & Co-Director, Bodies in Translation, her scholarship is a transformative force for disrupting stereotypes and societal barriers.

Victoria Pileggi is affiliated with the Department of Family Relations and Applied Nutrition at the University of Guelph, Guelph, Canada. Her scholarship focuses on child–parent relations. She works with the Re•Vision team as a research associate.