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The Royal Ballet for years provided audio devices with audio descriptions so that blind audience members could follow the action on stage. Now, via a groundbreaking production, the entire crowd will experience such commentary within a work that explores how visual impairment can transform our perceptions to sensation, audio and narrative.

Visually Impaired Artist Partners with Celebrated Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired creator, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other choreographers, and musician the celebrated composer in creating a recent Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed recently.

Within her creative practice, the artist is guided by a wish to demonstrate how blindness and disability can present an alternative mode of understanding for everyone. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the composition, forms the center of the performance on stage.

"Producing top-tier dance and opera for each person" is a guiding principle of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the troupe is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – encouraging creators and patrons to experience dance in transformative new ways," he explained.

Several Dance Creators Partner on New Production

The fresh production is being designed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, each collaborating with the blind artist.

The curator, the curator of this commission, said: "World Ballet Day was established on the principle of accessibility. Following a decade, we're extending that concept more to consider how challenged viewpoints can shape our performance style, and encourage audiences of all abilities and experiences to discover dance in innovative methods."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator understood that sighted people who had experienced Healey’s descriptive audio believed it assisted them comprehend dance, which can appear so abstract.

Inspiring Collaboration Between Expert and Amateur Performers

In a particular dance piece, the company's performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been visually impaired since birth and who had previously believed that ballet was "mainly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has realized that it actually "involves a lot of sensation and emotions" and engages perceptions, "visual and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of once getting lost on his way home and using the sun to direct his way back had influenced a dance piece in which the professional dancer embodies the "soothing presence of the sun around his partner as they move together," Malcomson explained.

"It was in the afternoon and I had a sense that the sun should be shining from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunlight, even though I wouldn’t see the light itself, I could sense the heat … So I kept walking to the west …. It guided me home. The sun was a good assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful symbol. So the narrative developed from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Special Connection with Motion

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability research at the Toronto university, commented: "Visual impairment and being blind fosters a active connection with movement in a way that is like a professional dancer’s relationship with their physical self and dance."

In working with the dancers, the artist was attempting to express what "they perceive in their physical being, something that’s just not available through sight," she said. "I converse with the dancers to get a understanding of how they’re feeling in their body, where their breathing is, what they’re thinking, how their physical form are feeling.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] costume, lighting, stage design and sound designers, the understandings and innovation of visual impairment are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing individuals, build a rapport through our love of movement and dance. It is this creativity and affection that I strive to weave into the spoken commentary. It is a collaboration of the perceptions directed by blindness."

She continued: "Even though the view of the ballet, the gorgeous display, is there facing the audience, there is a great deal that they miss or valuing, and it is blindness that is welcoming sighted and visually impaired viewers both into the unseen. What I hope is that, when viewers exit, they experience dance in a new way, and they’re also experiencing the existence, and perceiving the perceptions of, blindness in new and vibrant ways."

Musician The Composer on Audio Descriptions

The composer, whose works have accumulated more than 3.5 billion online plays, said the descriptive commentary formed a connection between blindness and sight "through a soundscape, giving voice to that which does not always appear". He noted: "This isn't just a narration of a performance. This is the performance itself."

World Ballet Event Partners

The company's global partners for World Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will furthermore provide access to exclusive material, practice sessions and freshly produced works – streamed live via their official platform.