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The Royal Ballet for years made available headphones with descriptive narration so that blind audience members could follow the movement on stage. Currently, via a groundbreaking new work, the entire crowd will experience such narration within a work that examines how blindness can transform our reactions to experience, audio and dramatic expression.

Visually Impaired Artist Collaborates with Famous Choreographers

The blind artist, a blind creator, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and musician Max Richter in producing a fresh ballet company production that will debut on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed on Thursday.

In her art, the artist is driven by a desire to demonstrate how visual impairment and physical challenge can offer an alternative form of perception for all people. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the score, creates the center of the performance on stage.

"Creating exceptional ballet and opera for each person" is a motto of the the organization. Under the director, the company's leader, the company is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – inviting artists and viewers to discover ballet in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Multiple Choreographers Work on New Production

The new work is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to McGregor, each working with Healey.

Robert Binet, the curator of this production, commented: "International Ballet Day was created on the idea of inclusion. After a decade, we're expanding that concept further to examine how challenged outlooks can mold our creative medium, and encourage viewers of all abilities and experiences to encounter dance in fresh approaches."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, the curator recognized that those with vision who had heard the artist's descriptive audio felt it assisted them grasp ballet, which can look so abstract.

Inspiring Partnership Between Professional and Amateur Performers

In a particular performance, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless since birth and who had previously believed that dance was "mainly for sighted people". But Kikuchi has discovered that it truly "includes a lot of emotion and sentiments" and engages faculties, "visual and other sensory".

The dancer's individual experience of previously getting lost on his way home and relying on the sunlight to guide his way back had motivated a performance in which the professional dancer becomes the "gentle warmth of the sun around his partner as they perform as one," Malcomson said.

"It was during the day and I had a sense that the sun should be radiating from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the rays itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I continued moving to the west …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a great guide to me. The sun could be a meaningful representation. So the narrative originated from there."

Blindness Offers Special Relationship with Motion

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability studies at the University of Toronto, said: "Visual impairment and lacking sight fosters a dynamic bond with motion in a way that is similar to a expert performer's relationship with their body and motion."

In partnering with the performers, she was striving to express what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through sight," she noted. "I converse with the dancers to get a feeling of how they’re feeling in their body, where their breathing is, what they think, how their muscles are feeling.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] clothing, illumination, set and sound creators, the perceptions and innovation of blindness are constantly visible as we, blind and seeing people, establish a connection through our passion of dance and dance. It is this artistry and love that I attempt to weave into the spoken commentary. It is a cooperation of the senses directed by visual impairment."

The artist added: "Although the vision of the ballet, the stunning spectacle, is there in front of the viewers, there is so much that they miss or understanding, and it is visual impairment that is welcoming seeing and visually impaired audience members equally into the hidden. What I desire is that, when viewers depart, they feel ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also experiencing the being, and perceiving the viewpoints of, visual impairment in new and vibrant ways."

Musician The Composer on Audio Narration

The composer, whose compositions have amassed more than billions of online plays, said the descriptive commentary established a connection between blindness and sight "through a soundscape, offering narration to that which does not always appear". He continued: "It is not just a narration of a performance. This is performance."

World Dance Day Collaborators

The company's international collaborators for World Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The troupes will furthermore offer entry to behind-the-scenes material, rehearsals and newly commissioned works – transmitted as it happens via online channels.