International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Macdonald, A. (2024). Reasonable adjustments: Movements of care. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 25(si1.14). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea25si1.14

This article explores the relationship between performance and care within socially engaged dance. It offers a practice-led exploration of the movement of care with specific reference to a screendance (dance and film) called Reasonable Adjustments (2020), which was made with people living with chronic pain. The retrospective analysis of this artwork, made by the author, focuses on the quality of responsivity, which is a term used to describe a sensitivity to affective states, a heightened capacity to respond and the fluctuating exchange between stimulus and action. Here, responsivity is explored as a participatory dance method that is potentially valuable within both social and medical care contexts and in refining understandings of what Thompson (2022) calls the aesthetics of care. Responsivity is also observed as an integral part of practice-based research, where care operates as a method for generating knowledge.