Dance - Live Tissue

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n a recent article on the neurodiversity website The Aspergian, author and activist C.L. Lynch asserts that our conventional understanding of autism is mistaken, in part because of the language that describes it. The problem lies with the word “spectrum.” Generally, we use the term to describe the condition’s intensity: Someone’s on "the severe end of the spectrum.” And conventional usage suggests the presence or absence of constituent components: “I may not be autistic, but I’m definitely on the spectrum.”

In her article, Lynch points out that, as a spectrum is a continuum of different colors that exist simultaneously, autism is a group of intertwined, co-existing neurological conditions affecting areas including sensory and information processing, social awareness, and neuro-motor differences. “If you only check one or two boxes, then they don’t call it autism—they call it something else,” Lynch observes. “But if you have all of the above and more, they call it autism.”

Lynch’s article comes to mind as I consider Black Irish Baile’s new evening-length dance work, līv ˈtiSHo͞o (live tissue), which premiered on June 30 in Cary. It's a sensory-saturating fusillade that attempts to translate choreographer Ronald West’s own neurological experiences with an epileptic disorder and those of the dance students with autism he teaches into a staged, shareable experience performed by professional-level dancers.