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The Royal Ballet has long made available headphones with spoken commentary so that blind audience members could follow the action on stage. Currently, through a revolutionary performance, the entire audience will hear such descriptions within a piece that investigates how blindness can reshape our perceptions to experience, audio and storytelling.

Blind Creator Works with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind creator, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and musician the celebrated composer in producing a new ballet company commission that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed recently.

In her art, the artist is motivated by a wish to illustrate how visual impairment and disability can provide an unique form of awareness for each individual. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the music, establishes the center of the production on stage.

"Creating world-class dance and musical theater for each person" is a mission statement of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the troupe is focusing on "complete inclusion – encouraging artists and audiences to encounter dance in life-changing innovative methods," he stated.

Several Dance Creators Collaborate on Fresh Performance

The new work is being created by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, alongside Wayne McGregor, all partnering with Healey.

The curator, the organizer of this production, commented: "International Ballet Day was founded on the principle of accessibility. Following a ten years, we're extending that idea further to consider how challenged outlooks can influence our creative medium, and encourage patrons of every capability and histories to experience dance in new ways."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, he recognized that sighted people who had heard the artist's descriptive audio felt it helped them grasp ballet, which can appear so complex.

Inspiring Partnership Between Professional and Amateur Dancers

In a particular dance piece, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired from birth and who had always thought that dance was "mostly for those who can see". But Kikuchi has realized that it actually "involves a lot of sensation and feelings" and activates senses, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's personal story of previously losing his way on his way home and using the sunlight to guide his way back had inspired a dance piece in which Dixon becomes the "soothing presence of the sun around Kikuchi as they move together," Malcomson stated.

"It was during the day and I had a sense that the sun should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the sunlight itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I continued moving to the west …. It guided me home. The sun was a good helper to me. The sun could be a powerful metaphor. So the narrative originated from there."

Blindness Presents Unique Connection with Dance

Healey, an assistant professor of disability research at the Toronto university, said: "Blindness and lacking sight fosters a dynamic relationship with dance in a way that is similar to a professional dancer’s bond with their body and dance."

In working with the performers, she was attempting to express what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not available through sight," she explained. "I speak with the dancers to get a feeling of how they are in their body, where their respiration is, what they think, how their body are experiencing.

"Partnering with the choreographers [and] clothing, stage lights, stage design and audio creators, the perceptions and creativity of blindness are ever present as we, visually impaired and sighted people, build a relationship through our passion of dance and performance. It is this creativity and love that I attempt to integrate into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a collaboration of the faculties led by visual impairment."

She added: "Although the sight of the ballet, the gorgeous visual feast, is present facing the patrons, there is much that they miss or understanding, and it is blindness that is inviting sighted and blind audience members equally into the invisible. What I wish is that, when audience members exit, they experience ballet in a different way, and they’re also experiencing the presence, and perceiving the perceptions of, blindness in fresh and vibrant ways."

Musician Max Richter on Sound Descriptions

The composer, whose works have amassed more than billions of digital listens, commented the descriptive commentary established a rapport between visual impairment and sight "through a soundscape, providing expression to that which remains unseen". He added: "This isn't just a narration of a performance. It is the performance itself."

International Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s worldwide associates for International Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also offer access to behind-the-scenes footage, practice sessions and freshly produced works – streamed as it happens via their official platform.