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This prestigious ballet company for years offered headphones with spoken commentary so that blind viewers could track the action on stage. Presently, via a groundbreaking new work, the whole crowd will experience such narration within a production that examines how lack of sight can reshape our reactions to feeling, music and narrative.

Visually Impaired Artist Works with Famous Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a blind creator, is collaborating with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and musician Max Richter in developing a recent ballet company work that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as announced recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is driven by a wish to illustrate how visual impairment and disability can provide an unique type of perception for everyone. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, woven with the music, forms the center of the performance on stage.

"Making world-class ballet and musical theater for each person" is a guiding principle of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the organization is focusing on "radical accessibility – inviting performers and viewers to encounter dance in life-changing new ways," he said.

Multiple Dance Creators Partner on New Performance

The new work is being created by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, all collaborating with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the curator of this production, stated: "International Ballet Day was founded on the idea of access. Following a ten years, we're extending that idea deeper to explore how disabled viewpoints can influence our creative medium, and invite viewers of all abilities and histories to discover dance in new ways."

Having worked with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, he understood that individuals who can see who had experienced Healey’s descriptive audio felt it aided them comprehend ballet, which can look so complex.

Inspiring Collaboration Of Expert and Non-Professional Performers

In a particular dance piece, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired from childhood and who had previously believed that dance was "mainly for those who can see". But the dancer has discovered that it in fact "includes a lot of feeling and feelings" and taps into faculties, "visual and non-sight".

The dancer's unique narrative of once becoming disoriented on his way home and using the sunlight to orient his way back had influenced a dance piece in which Dixon becomes the "soothing presence of the sun around his partner as they dance in unison," Malcomson stated.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be beaming from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I didn't perceive the sunlight itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I persisted in walking to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sun was a good guide to me. The sun could be a powerful representation. So the story originated from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Special Relationship with Dance

Healey, an academic of disability research at the Toronto university, stated: "Visual impairment and being blind fosters a vibrant connection with dance in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s connection with their physical self and dance."

In collaborating with the performers, the artist was attempting to convey what "they feel in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through vision," she said. "I speak with the dancers to get a sense of how they’re feeling in their body, where their breathing is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are feeling.

"Working together with the choreographers [and] attire, lighting, scenery and sound creators, the viewpoints and creativity of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and sighted persons, develop a rapport through our passion of dance and dance. It is this creativity and affection that I try to integrate into the spoken commentary. It is a cooperation of the faculties guided by visual impairment."

She added: "Although the view of the dance, the stunning visual feast, is there before the audience, there is so much that they overlook or understanding, and it is blindness that is welcoming sighted and blind audience members equally into the invisible. What I wish is that, when patrons exit, they experience ballet in a new way, and they’re also experiencing the existence, and listening to the understandings of, blindness in new and dynamic ways."

Musician Max Richter on Audio Descriptions

Richter, whose works have gathered more than 3.5bn digital listens, commented the descriptive commentary established a connection between blindness and sight "by means of a musical landscape, providing expression to that which is not always visible". He noted: "This isn't just a description of a production. It is the performance itself."

World Ballet Event Partners

The Royal Ballet’s international collaborators for International Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The troupes will furthermore provide availability to behind-the-scenes material, rehearsals and freshly produced pieces – broadcast live via their official platform.