Breaking Myths about Autism through Performance-based Practices. An Exploratory Analysis of the Imagining Autism Approach

Since the Seventies, the encounter between drama/theater/performance and disability has attract­ed a growing interest from both the world of art and theatrical critics and from the sciences of ed­ucation and pedagogy, engendering a fertile research field. In recent years, autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have increasibily been the object and subject of these performative experimenta­tions, riding the wave of popularity that this epidemiology is experiencing at the international level. After a preliminary review of the main approaches using participatory perfomance practices with persons with autism, this work focuses on one of these methods: Imagining Autism. Providing an overview of its history and implementation, the paper explores the use of performance­based ac­tivities and their characteristics as a venue for autism research which might contribute to de­mythol­ogize this condition by challenging well­established stereotypes.