🔗 Share this article

This prestigious ballet company for years made available headphones with descriptive narration so that blind audience members could follow the movement on stage. Currently, via a revolutionary performance, the complete gathering will listen to such commentary within a production that explores how blindness can reshape our reactions to experience, music and narrative.

Visually Impaired Artist Works with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind artist, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and composer the celebrated composer in developing a recent Royal Ballet production that will debut on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as revealed on Thursday.

Through her work, the artist is driven by a desire to illustrate how blindness and disability can offer an alternative type of perception for all people. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, blended with the composition, forms the center of the show on stage.

"Making world-class dance and musical theater for each person" is a guiding principle of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the company is focusing on "total access – welcoming performers and patrons to discover dance in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Various Dance Creators Partner on New Production

The fresh production is being designed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, all collaborating with Healey.

The curator, the organizer of this commission, stated: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of access. Following a ten years, we're extending that idea more to explore how challenged viewpoints can influence our performance style, and welcome audiences of every capability and backgrounds to discover ballet in new ways."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canada and Australia, he realized that individuals who can see who had experienced the artist's spoken descriptions believed it helped them grasp ballet, which can seem so unclear.

Moving Partnership Of Professional and Non-Professional Performers

In one dance piece, the company's performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from childhood and who had always thought that ballet was "primarily for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has realized that it truly "involves a lot of sensation and feelings" and taps into faculties, "visual and non-visual".

Kikuchi’s personal story of once becoming disoriented on his way home and using the sunlight to guide his way back had inspired a dance piece in which Dixon represents the "gentle warmth of the sunlight around Kikuchi as they move together," Malcomson said.

"It was during the day and I had a sense that the sunlight should be shining from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I didn't perceive the rays itself, I could sense the heat … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It led me home. The sun was a excellent helper to me. The sun could be a good symbol. So the narrative originated from there."

Blindness Offers Special Relationship with Movement

Healey, an academic of disability studies at the University of Toronto, said: "Blindness and being blind fosters a dynamic relationship with motion in a way that is similar to a professional dancer’s relationship with their body and motion."

In working with the dancers, she was striving to communicate what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through vision," she said. "I converse with the performers to get a feeling of how they feel in their body, where their respiration is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are sensing.

"Partnering with the choreographers [and] attire, lighting, set and music artists, the viewpoints and artistry of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, build a connection through our passion of movement and dance. It is this artistry and affection that I try to blend into the detailed narration. It is a cooperation of the senses directed by visual impairment."

The artist added: "Although the sight of the performance, the stunning visual feast, is present facing the viewers, there is much that they miss or appreciating, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging seeing and blind audience members alike into the unseen. What I desire is that, when viewers depart, they sense performance in a new way, and they’re also sensing the presence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in fresh and active ways."

Composer The Composer on Audio Narration

Richter, whose compositions have amassed more than 3.5 billion online plays, commented the spoken narration established a rapport between blindness and vision "through a soundscape, offering narration to that which remains unseen". He added: "It is not simply a description of a show. It is the art."

World Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s global partners for International Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also provide availability to exclusive footage, preparations and newly commissioned productions – broadcast as it happens via online channels.