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The Royal Ballet has long provided audio devices with descriptive narration so that blind patrons could follow the action on stage. Currently, via a groundbreaking new work, the complete crowd will listen to such commentary within a piece that examines how lack of sight can redefine our perceptions to experience, sound and storytelling.

Blind Creator Works with Celebrated Choreographers

The blind artist, a visually impaired creator, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and composer Max Richter in developing a recent Royal Ballet commission that will debut on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as declared on Thursday.

In her art, the artist is motivated by a desire to demonstrate how blindness and physical challenge can provide an alternative mode of understanding for everyone. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, blended with the music, creates the heart of the performance on stage.

"Producing world-class dance and musical theater for each person" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under the director, the Royal Ballet's leader, the company is concentrating on "radical accessibility – welcoming artists and audiences to discover ballet in transformative fresh approaches," he stated.

Multiple Choreographers Partner on New Work

The fresh production is being choreographed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, alongside Wayne McGregor, each partnering with Healey.

Robert Binet, the organizer of this production, stated: "International Ballet Day was established on the principle of access. Following a ten years, we're expanding that notion further to consider how impaired viewpoints can shape our creative medium, and invite audiences of every capability and backgrounds to experience dance in fresh approaches."

Having worked with the artist in Canadian venues and Australia, he understood that sighted people who had encountered the artist's audio narration felt it helped them understand ballet, which can seem so abstract.

Touching Collaboration Of Professional and Amateur Performers

In one duet, the company's performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired since birth and who had always thought that ballet was "primarily for those who can see". But Kikuchi has understood that it actually "involves a lot of emotion and emotions" and taps into perceptions, "sight-based and non-visual".

Kikuchi’s unique narrative of previously getting lost on his way home and relying on the sunlight to direct his way back had influenced a dance piece in which Dixon becomes the "warm breath of the sunlight around his partner as they dance in unison," the choreographer explained.

"It was during the day and I had a intuition that the sunlight should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the sunlight itself, I could sense the heat … So I persisted in walking to the west …. It directed me home. The sunshine was a good helper to me. The sunlight could be a meaningful metaphor. So the narrative developed from there."

Visual Impairment Offers Unique Connection with Motion

Healey, an assistant professor of disability studies at the University of Toronto, commented: "Visual impairment and lacking sight encourages a vibrant connection with movement in a way that is comparable to a expert performer's relationship with their physical self and movement."

In collaborating with the performers, the artist was seeking to communicate what "they feel in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through looking," she said. "I speak with the performers to get a sense of how they are in their body, where their breathing is, what they think, how their physical form are feeling.

"Partnering with the dance creators [and] clothing, lighting, scenery and sound artists, the viewpoints and innovation of visual impairment are ever present as we, visually impaired and sighted persons, develop a relationship through our love of movement and dance. It is this innovation and love that I try to weave into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a collaboration of the faculties guided by visual impairment."

She continued: "While the sight of the dance, the beautiful spectacle, is available facing the audience, there is so much that they’re not accessing or valuing, and it is blindness that is welcoming sighted and visually impaired audience members alike into the hidden. What I desire is that, when viewers depart, they feel dance in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the being, and perceiving the perceptions of, visual impairment in new and active ways."

Musician Max Richter on Audio Narration

The composer, whose works have accumulated more than billions of streams, stated the descriptive commentary established a rapport between blindness and vision "through a musical landscape, providing expression to that which remains unseen". He added: "It is not simply a explanation of a show. This is performance."

World Dance Day Partners

The company's international collaborators for International Ballet Day include the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian dance troupe. The companies will furthermore supply access to backstage video, practice sessions and newly commissioned productions – streamed as it happens via the event website.