This is a blog and artist bio by Ambient Jam artist Xan Dye, edited by Zarah Ahmed

Earlier this month Rebecca was joined in conversation by Ambient Jam artist Xan Dye about their research project STIMMING.

In September 2023, Xan shared their practice through creating STIMMING -a collective encounter between performers and audience at The Place. This event was a relaxed performance experience, sitting somewhere between a meditation, a dance piece and DJ set. The piece drew from experiences including Ambient Jam, where Xan has experienced the joy of sharing rhythm with others and moving in ways guided by their own sensory pleasure.

Xan Dye is an independent artist whose practice explores movement as sensory experience. This practice emerged from a time in Xan’s life when they were learning about their neurodivergence, and beginning to explore what a movement practice could offer them in relation to this.

Image from STIMMING 2023

Their ongoing research project STIMMING explores what we can learn from the rhythmic, repetitive, sensory seeking movements that we do, consciously or unconsciously, to self-regulate and seek sensation. These self-regulatory movements are known as stimming and may be particularly important for neurodivergent people. By framing stimming as dance, and dance as stimming, Xan explores how they can carve out ways of doing and making dance which offers comfort, oblivion, release, and flow.

Image from  STIMMING 2023

Part of Xan’s research has been participating in Ambient Jam, “a unique dance improvisation programme arising from long term collaborations with adults and young people who have profound and multiple disabilities” which “explores movement and music with tactile sculpture”. For Xan, Ambient Jam has offered an affirmative space to explore their stimming-dancing practice through touching, moving and vocalizing; to witness and be witnessed in stimming; to attune to the rhythms and sensory experience of others; and to explore ways of encountering others whilst holding curiosity about what is emerging for self.

Image from STIMMING 2023