Make Way for Me / Tara Brenner (2021)

My MFA practice as research project, Make Way for Me, explores the way that my lived experience of Attention Deficit Hyper Activity Disorder (ADHD) has impacted on my approach to creative practice. This dissertation engages with the following topics: ADHD from a psychiatric perspective; Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; inclusivity in the education system; Dance Movement Therapy; arts and neurodiversity; the concept of rhizomatic thinking. In order to represent the complexity of the relationship between neurodiversity and creative processes, I have accessed a broad range of references from the fields of psychiatry, science and performance in order to interrogate and frame my personal insights into ADHD, including research published in The American Journal of Dance Therapy; the work of clinical professor and ADHD author, Thomas E. Brown; writing by performance artist and disability culture activist, Petra Kuppers; performance work by dancer and choreographer, Rita Marcalo; the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari. I present practical research and theoretical perspectives interwoven and in dialogue with childhood memories and accounts of my lived experience with ADHD. Additionally, Make Way for Me investigates how my symptoms of ADHD transfer into the process of assimilating and sharing material as an artist. Through journaling, voice and video recordings, and inviting people observe studio sessions, I accumulate excerpts of information that speak to the experience of navigating the world with neurodivergence.

Keywords: ADHD, neurodiversity, rhizome, performance