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This prestigious ballet company for years offered headphones with descriptive narration so that blind viewers could track the movement on stage. Currently, in a groundbreaking production, the entire crowd will listen to such commentary within a work that explores how lack of sight can redefine our responses to experience, sound and dramatic expression.

Visually Impaired Creator Collaborates with Celebrated Choreographers

The blind artist, a visually impaired creator, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and musician the celebrated composer in producing a new Royal Ballet work that will premiere on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as declared recently.

Through her work, Healey is driven by a ambition to show how visual impairment and disability can provide an alternative form of perception for everyone. Her detailed audio narration, blended with the music, creates the center of the production on stage.

"Creating world-class dance and opera for each person" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under the director, the Royal Ballet's leader, the company is focusing on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and audiences to encounter ballet in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Several Choreographers Partner on Fresh Performance

The new work is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, each collaborating with the blind artist.

The curator, the organizer of this work, said: "International Ballet Day was founded on the idea of accessibility. After a decade, we're pushing that concept more to explore how challenged perspectives can mold our performance style, and invite audiences of all abilities and backgrounds to encounter ballet in fresh approaches."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canadian venues and Australian locations, he realized that those with vision who had experienced the artist's spoken descriptions found it assisted them understand ballet, which can appear so abstract.

Touching Collaboration Of Expert and Amateur Performers

In a particular performance, the company's performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been blind from childhood and who had always thought that dance was "mostly for those who can see". But Kikuchi has realized that it actually "entails a lot of sensation and emotions" and engages perceptions, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's individual experience of once losing his way on his way home and using the sun to direct his way back had motivated a performance in which Dixon represents the "gentle warmth of the sun around his partner as they perform as one," the choreographer stated.

"This occurred during the day and I had a sense that the sunlight should be beaming from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunlight, even though I wouldn’t see the rays itself, I could feel the heat … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sunshine was a excellent helper to me. The sun could be a good symbol. So the narrative originated from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Unique Connection with Movement

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability studies at the University of Toronto, commented: "Visual impairment and lacking sight encourages a vibrant relationship with motion in a way that is similar to a professional dancer’s relationship with their physical self and motion."

In partnering with the dancers, the artist was seeking to convey what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through sight," she explained. "I speak with the performers to get a sense of how they feel in their body, where their respiration is, what they’re thinking, how their body are sensing.

"Partnering with the dance creators [and] costume, lighting, set and sound creators, the viewpoints and artistry of visual impairment are always there as we, visually impaired and sighted persons, build a relationship through our affection of dance and dance. It is this artistry and affection that I strive to integrate into the detailed narration. It is a partnership of the perceptions led by visual impairment."

The artist continued: "Although the vision of the performance, the gorgeous display, is present in front of the viewers, there is a great deal that they’re not accessing or understanding, and it is blindness that is encouraging seeing and visually impaired audience members both into the hidden. What I wish is that, when viewers exit, they sense performance in a new way, and they’re also feeling the existence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in fresh and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Descriptions

The composer, whose recordings have accumulated more than 3.5bn digital listens, said the spoken narration established a connection between blindness and vision "via a audio environment, offering narration to that which is not always visible". He continued: "It is not merely a explanation of a performance. It is the performance itself."

World Ballet Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s worldwide partners for World Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The companies will also supply access to exclusive video, preparations and newly commissioned pieces – transmitted in real-time via online channels.