Athena, being autistic and Dance Movement Therapy - and how these connected in Athens on International Autism Awareness Day 2024

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.

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. 

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. 

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...

What I'm doing blogging-wise as a fellow at Durham sharing my Adventures in the Palace Green concerning classics in 19th-century young people's culture

I realise that I've been quiet on this blog for a month or so. Posts will come - especially now that my book is out, and the accompanying materials are soon to go live. And, in the meantime, let me stress that it's not that I haven't been busy blogging-wise. I've actually been more busy blogging than in quite a while - since the last time I posted each day for Autism Week a few years back. 

This is because I've started a new blog to share findings of a project that began earlier this month.

The blog is called Adventures in the Palace Green - and in this blog, I do what's 'said on the tin' - I share what I have been finding out in my time in the Special Collections reading room - the Barker Room - at Palace Green Library of the University of Durham where I'm currently a Barker Fellow.

Screenshot - in Flipcard mode - of my Adventures... blog to date

As a Barker Fellow, I'm doing something that might look different from my work on autism and classical myth. What I'm doing does however build from that work - and may very well shape further things that I go do on autism, young people and mythology. For the project concerns how young people - mostly young men - of the Long 19th Century experienced Classics. Thus it is a project that, like the autism and myth one, concerns where young people's culture connects with Classics.

It is my pleasure to share the blog with you. If you take a look, I'd love to hear what you think.

The blog can be found here. 

Announcement: What would Hercules do IS OUT!

One thing I love about blogging is the opportunity it gives to disseminate research while it is in progress. And for years now I have been sharing my progress with a series of lessons for autistic young people based on the mythological experiences of Hercules. 

More recently, I have been sharing that this process has gradually been leading towards a moment, a thing, A BOOK... 

The book is now out. 

I write with the hardcopy version beside me. 

My book against my computer screen while I write this blog post

It exists - and it's been beautifully produced by the publisher at Warsaw. As well as being available via the publisher the pdf of the book is available online. Here is the link.

The resources linked with the book will be going live soon, once a few final tweaks have been made. We'll get them out as soon as possible - not least as teachers have been in touch already asking about them!

I'm so excited to be at this stage. It's an endpoint, but also a new beginning, where, for example, I'll be delivering and adapting the lessons myself and creating new ones. But for now, I'll pause and shares screenshots of information about the book and the endorsements that appear there and on the back cover of the book.

I'd love to hear thoughts about the book either via a comment to this blog or via email at susan.deacy@bristol.ac.uk

My book on the publisher's website

Reviews of the book on the publisher's website

On reading the review of my 2022 conference at Leicester by Emma Astra AKA The Disabled PhD Student

A colleague got in touch recently to ask whether I knew about an article written about a visit I made to the University of Leicester last year to talk about where autism, neurodiversity, disability and classics cross and connect.

I didn't know about it. But when I clicked the link, what I found there floored me, in a wonderful way.

The article is here. 

It's by Emma Astra AKA The Disabled PhD Student. Emma sets out what it was like for her attending the different phases of the day, starting with an informal drop-in, continuing with lunch at a cafe on campus, then having tea and cakes in the foyer of one of the university buildings and finally attending a more formal presentation from myself, though where participants had the option of a colouring in activity.

Space to connect at Leicester University's Percy Gee Building.
Photo Ashley Drake. Sourced from Wikimedia Commons

The article beings with the header: 'How and why I changed my perspective of Greek Tragedy because of Professor Susan Deacy'.

I'm not going to summarise what Emma says because I can't do justice to it. Here, though, are a few points I want to get down - including so that they can serve as actions points for myself:

1. Informal drop-in sessions: these should become a thing!
2. The 'crossroads' image is worth keeping pursuing
3. Opportunities for conversations in non-formal settings like such are worth having. As Emma writes, it's here that 'the most connecting and experience arises'
4. Colouring in is 'therapeutic'. There need to be more colouring in opportunities
5. Hercules can resonate in unexpected ways
6. Emma's medium site and PhD blog are wonderful places
7. So too is the work of Andrew Hugill, author of the Autistic Professor blog 
8. 'Hybrid events are important' for disabled people just as Emma says.

University Road Sign designed by Freepik.
Attribution here

As I mentioned in my previous posting, I am off to Leicester again next week both to look back over the Hercules phase of my practice and to look ahead to what I'm planning concerning Medusa. The crossroads image will be all the more important for me to think through in like of Emma's insights.

On getting to 'every crossroads' in Leicester on November 30th

I'll be heading to one of my academic homes next week, the University of Leicester, to talk about two 'paths' in my autism-related activities to date.

At a workshop at the University, I'll be presenting my - nearly out! - book of lessons for autistic young people based on Hercules. 

Poster for my session at Leicester on November 30th, designed by Dan Stewart

I'll also be introducing my next project, which will pursue a 'Medusan' path. 

Here I shall propose Medusa as a figure who can resonate with autistic ways of being. I'll set out how Medusa does this differently from Hercules, but at least as significantly. I plan to focus on how Medusa fits, notably, with being autistic and:

- self stimulation

- movement

- emotional intensity.

I visited Leicester in September 2022 for a Hercules-focused session which included an (opt-in) interactive activity. I'm planning to same this time round as well.

It's possible to attend online as well as in person. Email the address on the poster above or me via susan.deacy@bristol.ac.uk for information.

It is very likely that I shall be discussing several crossroads-rich images. Here's a taster:

Zbigniew Karaszewski, The Choice of Hercules 4 (2022) based on a 1603 illustration of the constellation by Johann Bayer sourced from Wikimedia Commons 

 

A crossroads on the Zeus Housing Estate in Warsaw photographed by Maria Makarewicz

The cover of my book :)

Anya Laura, Medusa at the Interface Between Science and Arts, from S.Goffredo and Z. Dubinsky (ads.), The Cnidaria, Past, Present and Future: The World of Medusa and her Sisters, Springer 2016: ii

What Would Hercules Do? On why the answer to this question is now imminent - my book is nearly out

I write with news! 

The book of lessons for autistic children that I have mentioned many times over the last few years is very nearly out. It is advertised by the publisher HERE and due out by Christmas. 

It will be available in print form and online (for free, via Open Access!). 

More news as I receive it, but as a taster here, first, is the cover:

And here, secondly, are some endorsements:

Live blogging Hera's Terrible Trap in the Hopeless Heroes series where, TLDR, I'm half way through and taking a pause to process after some experiences to date of Medusa-receptions for young people

I’m now about to start reading Hera’s Terrible Trap, the second book in the Hopeless Heroes series while blogging about it.

Getting ready to take out volume 2 from the box set of Hopeless Heroes by Stella Tarakson 

In the first book, which I blogged about last week, Hera was set up as the enemy of the hero, Tim, as an extension to her enmity for Hercules.

From looking at the cover of the book, Hera is looking set to continue to be put in the role, standard in classical receptions for children I think, of the bitter enemy of Hercules who is dedicated to persecuting him. 

To be fair, there are classical precedents for this in ancient sources including Hesiod, where Hera is responsible for rearing several of the creatures whom Hercules comes up against.

The dedication of the book to the author’s mother, Helen, ‘a migrant who brought her mythology with her’ offers a perspective who it is who ‘owns’ classical mythology which raises some big questions.

The book opens in a garden centre with what it’s like to be a child taken to a garden centre reminds me of own memories of being taking to them. Here, described from the perspective of Tim, the place is full of adults exclaiming delightedly as they look at plants as though they’d never seen any before.

It is due to what happened in the first book, it turns out – nice exposition here – that Tim and his mother are in the garden centre as they need to buy new plants to replace those that Hercules blasted treating them like the (botanical – I loved that!) Hydra.

Tim has grown in confidence since the first book. When he meets the school bully – Leo, the name has to be significant… – at the garden centre he responds to being tripped up by tripping Leo up.

Oh yes on the depiction of Hera as the standard dedicated evil goddess one. She’s the ‘evil goddess’ on page 27 continuing how, at page 8, ever since Hercules had been born, ‘Hera had decided to hate and resent him’ – emphasis added.

There has been some rushed exposition: how Hermes came into the story as the helper of Hera out of fear for her is rehearsed. But now we are I think into the plot of the new adventure when, after Tim returns home to find Hermes flying off in his winged sandals with the ancient Greek vase that Hera desperately wants back, Tim grabs the vase and is transported away holding onto it (p. 30).

He is transported, it turns out, to Hera’s sanctuary in ancient Greece. Preceded by a flock of peacocks – introducing for the readers quite nicely Hera’s sacred birds – Hera appears, asks Tim his name, and reveals – this is great! – that, echoing the meaning of name of Hercules and its connection with Hera (though this isn’t stated here), the name Timothy means ‘Honouring God’ (40).

Tim runs away from Hera’s temple – so while in the first book Hercules was transplanted into the modern world, this time round Tim is going to be transplanted into the world of classical myth. 

In what is a missed opportunity not to evoke this world of classical myth, Tim runs straight into Hercules who takes him to his home and his wife who is called Agatha – in this regard the author is making her own intervention I assume.

I’ve now met Hercules’ daughter, Zoe, and lacking the subtlety of the first book where Tim and his world are gradually evoked, here Hercules thinks girls should stay indoors while Zoe wonders whether, in the future, girls are able to leave home to have adventures. I’m anticipating similar presentism as the book continues.

I’m skimming a bit as this book lacks the subtlety and world-evocation of the first one.

Tim has just met Theseus, who has killed the Minotaur already but whose father is still alive. Theseus – in the role of a self-loving teenager, which is about right I guess - has come to meet Tim having heard on the ‘GGG’ (66) that he needed help. 

I need to turn the page to find out what GGG is going to stand far. I’m going to guess ‘Greek gods something’. Ah – p. 70: ‘Greek God Grapevine’.

Zoe has revealed that this is how gods pass on messages to heroes.

As a take on magical properties of grapevines in ancient sources – as on vases where everyday people seem to have become transported into the realm of Dionysos – this is super.

There’s a nice twist on stories being narrated within stories as in Ovid’s Metamorphosis when Zoe, star struck, asks Theseus, to narrate how he killed the Minotaur and only snippets are given as Tim filters out his arrogant boasting. 

But the rehearsal of the story serves to help Tim decide how to get the vase back as it reminds him of a computer game he used to enjoy playing which was set in a maze.

The three of them – Tim, Zoe and Theseus – go through a garden full of statues that lack the perfect bodies that Tim has become accustomed to seeing. Their faces look scared too, One statue is crying actual tears.

When Tim sees a woman in tattered clothes with snakes for hair coming towards them, Zoe warms him not to look at her, revealing that she is a gorgon. Thanks to the illustration by Nick Roberts on page 89, the reader is shown just what the gorgon looks like with big snaky locks of hair, slanted eyes (!) and large pointed teeth.

Zoe reveals that Hercules has told her about how his grandfather killed a gorgon, Medusa, but that she had failed to listen to how.

But it turns out that the relative, Perseus, Zoe’s great-grandfather, now lives in the gorgon’s garden and tends it contentedly.

I’m half way through and going to pause now. 

Hera's Terrible Trap: half way through

A heads up that it’s when I got as far (about a quarter way in) as Percy Jackson and his (again, two… this is interesting!) friends encountering Medusa that I stopped reading – due to how Medusa is treated.

Another heads-up: last week I was loving reading Show Us Who You Are by Elle McNicoll including for its evocations of the Medusa myth until the end with which I had several issues which made the whole experience unravel.

So I need to take a pause before reading more about what will happen next in the garden.