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The Royal Ballet for years made available audio devices with spoken commentary so that visually impaired audience members could understand the movement on stage. Presently, in a groundbreaking new work, the complete crowd will listen to such commentary within a work that investigates how visual impairment can redefine our responses to experience, audio and storytelling.

Visually Impaired Creator Works with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a blind artist, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other choreographers, and composer the celebrated composer in producing a fresh Royal Ballet commission that will launch on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as announced recently.

In her art, Healey is guided by a desire to show how visual impairment and physical challenge can present an alternative mode of perception for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, integrated with the score, creates the heart of the production on stage.

"Producing top-tier dance and opera for each person" is a mission statement of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's leader, the company is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – inviting performers and patrons to encounter ballet in life-changing new ways," he said.

Various Dance Creators Collaborate on Fresh Production

The recent commission is being designed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, each working with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the director of this commission, stated: "International Ballet Day was established on the concept of inclusion. After a ten years, we're extending that concept further to examine how challenged perspectives can mold our creative medium, and welcome viewers of all abilities and backgrounds to discover ballet in innovative methods."

Having worked with the artist in Canada and Australian locations, he recognized that individuals who can see who had experienced the artist's descriptive audio found it helped them comprehend dance, which can appear so complex.

Moving Partnership Of Expert and Non-Professional Dancers

In one dance piece, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been blind since birth and who had always thought that dance was "primarily for those who can see". But Kikuchi has understood that it in fact "involves a lot of sensation and emotions" and activates perceptions, "visual and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of once losing his way on his way home and relying on the sunlight to guide his way back had motivated a duet in which Dixon becomes the "warm breath of the sunlight around Kikuchi as they dance in unison," the choreographer explained.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be radiating from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I didn't perceive the sunlight itself, I could feel the warmth … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It led me home. The sun was a good guide to me. The sun could be a meaningful symbol. So the tale developed from there."

Blindness Offers Special Connection with Movement

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability research at the Toronto university, commented: "Blindness and being blind encourages a active relationship with dance in a way that is similar to a expert performer's bond with their body and movement."

In collaborating with the performers, the artist was seeking to convey what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through vision," she noted. "I talk with the dancers to get a sense of how they are in their physical self, where their breath is, what they think, how their muscles are experiencing.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] costume, lighting, stage design and music creators, the understandings and creativity of visual impairment are ever present as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, establish a rapport through our love of motion and performance. It is this innovation and affection that I strive to integrate into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a collaboration of the faculties directed by visual impairment."

She added: "While the vision of the dance, the stunning display, is there facing the audience, there is a great deal that they overlook or understanding, and it is blindness that is encouraging seeing and visually impaired viewers alike into the invisible. What I desire is that, when audience members exit, they experience dance in a distinct way, and they’re also sensing the presence, and perceiving the understandings of, blindness in innovative and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Sound Descriptions

Richter, whose compositions have accumulated more than billions of online plays, said the descriptive commentary established a relationship between visual impairment and vision "through a audio environment, offering narration to that which does not always appear". He noted: "This isn't just a description of a production. It is the performance itself."

International Ballet Day Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international collaborators for International Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also supply access to backstage video, practice sessions and recently created works – transmitted in real-time via online channels.