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The Royal Ballet for years offered audio devices with descriptive narration so that sightless patrons could follow the action on stage. Presently, in a revolutionary new work, the whole audience will experience such descriptions within a production that investigates how lack of sight can reshape our perceptions to feeling, sound and storytelling.

Visually Impaired Artist Collaborates with Famous Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired artist, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other dance creators, and composer the celebrated composer in creating a new Royal Ballet work that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as declared recently.

Through her work, the artist is driven by a ambition to illustrate how visual impairment and physical challenge can offer an unique mode of understanding for all people. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the score, forms the core of the performance on stage.

"Making exceptional ballet and musical theater for everyone" is a guiding principle of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the company is concentrating on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and patrons to experience dance in transformative fresh approaches," he said.

Several Dance Creators Work on Fresh Production

The new work is being designed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, all working with the blind artist.

The curator, the director of this commission, commented: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of accessibility. After a decade, we're extending that notion further to explore how impaired viewpoints can influence our art form, and welcome patrons of every capability and experiences to experience dance in innovative methods."

After collaborating with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, he understood that sighted people who had encountered Healey’s audio narration found it assisted them understand dance, which can seem so complex.

Moving Collaboration Between Expert and Non-Professional Dancers

In a particular dance piece, the company's performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired from childhood and who had previously believed that ballet was "primarily for individuals with vision". But the dancer has understood that it in fact "entails a lot of feeling and emotions" and engages perceptions, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's unique narrative of once becoming disoriented on his way home and relying on the sunlight to orient his way back had influenced a duet in which Dixon becomes the "gentle warmth of the sun around Kikuchi as they perform as one," Malcomson said.

"It was in the afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be radiating from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I didn't perceive the light itself, I could sense the temperature … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It led me home. The sunshine was a great guide to me. The sun could be a powerful metaphor. So the story emerged from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Unique Connection with Dance

The blind artist, an scholar of disability research at the University of Toronto, said: "Blindness and being blind fosters a vibrant relationship with movement in a way that is comparable to a expert performer's bond with their body and movement."

In collaborating with the performers, she was attempting to express what "they feel in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through vision," she explained. "I talk with the performers to get a sense of how they feel in their body, where their breathing is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are feeling.

"In collaboration with the dance creators [and] clothing, stage lights, set and sound designers, the understandings and innovation of visual impairment are always there as we, blind and seeing people, build a connection through our passion of motion and dance. It is this innovation and love that I strive to weave into the detailed narration. It is a cooperation of the faculties guided by visual impairment."

The artist added: "Although the vision of the dance, the stunning spectacle, is present facing the patrons, there is much that they miss or appreciating, and it is blindness that is inviting sighted and blind viewers alike into the invisible. What I hope is that, when patrons depart, they feel ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also experiencing the existence, and perceiving the understandings of, blindness in new and vibrant ways."

Composer The Composer on Sound Narration

The composer, whose compositions have amassed more than 3.5 billion digital listens, stated the spoken narration established a connection between visual impairment and sight "by means of a soundscape, offering narration to that which is not always visible". He continued: "It is not just a explanation of a show. This is the art."

International Ballet Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international partners for International Ballet Day include the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The companies will also supply availability to exclusive material, rehearsals and freshly produced pieces – broadcast in real-time via the event website.