Aby Watson

ABY WATSON is an artist, dance maker, performer, and researcher based in Glasgow

Aby makes playful and stimulating dance with an interest in unmasked neurodivergent embodiment, sensuality, presence, and consciousness. Through choreographic scores of movement, voice, and object that unfold in the now, her work toys with tensions between virtuosity and the pedestrian; beauty and the grotesque; the silly and the serious. Her work has been seen at venues The Southbank Centre, Sophiensaele, Tramway and Wales Millennium Centre, and her practice has been supported by The National Theatre of Scotland, Unlimited, The Workroom and Janice Parker Projects.

Neurodiversity is the hyperfocus of Aby's overall practice. Through her dancework, she strives to challenge exclusive neuronormative values in dance whilst expanding neurodivergent-centred choreographic processes and methods. Aby is a passionate advocate for the creative potential of neurodiversity in performance, and for the inclusivity, safety and equal equity of neurodivergent people in the performance sector.

She trained in Contemporary Performance Practice at The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where she is currently undergoing her practice-research PhD. Titled 'Disordering Dance', Aby's PhD project adopts a neuroqueer autoethnographic methodology to explore choreography that radically resists neuronormative dance culture and aesthetics.


Residencies