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The Royal Ballet for years made available audio devices with spoken commentary so that visually impaired patrons could track the movement on stage. Presently, in a revolutionary production, the whole audience will experience such descriptions within a work that examines how blindness can redefine our perceptions to feeling, music and storytelling.

Visually Impaired Creator Collaborates with Famous Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind creator, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in creating a new Royal Ballet commission that will debut on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as declared recently.

Through her work, Healey is guided by a ambition to show how blindness and physical challenge can provide an unique form of awareness for all people. Her rich spoken descriptions, woven with the score, establishes the center of the show on stage.

"Making exceptional dance and opera for each person" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's director, the organization is zeroing in on "total access – welcoming creators and viewers to experience ballet in transformative innovative methods," he explained.

Multiple Dance Creators Collaborate on New Performance

The new work is being created by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, every one partnering with the blind artist.

The curator, the director of this commission, stated: "International Ballet Day was founded on the principle of access. Following a decade, we're expanding that notion further to explore how challenged viewpoints can shape our creative medium, and welcome viewers of diverse capacities and backgrounds to experience ballet in fresh approaches."

After collaborating with the artist in Canada and Australian locations, he realized that those with vision who had encountered Healey’s descriptive audio felt it aided them understand ballet, which can appear so unclear.

Moving Partnership Between Professional and Non-Professional Dancers

In one duet, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been blind since birth and who had previously believed that ballet was "mainly for those who can see". But Kikuchi has realized that it in fact "entails a lot of sensation and emotions" and taps into faculties, "visual and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s personal story of earlier getting lost on his way home and relying on the sunlight to direct his way back had influenced a performance in which the professional dancer represents the "warm breath of the sun around Kikuchi as they move together," Malcomson explained.

"It was in the afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the rays itself, I could feel the heat … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It guided me home. The sun was a excellent assistant to me. The sun could be a good symbol. So the tale developed from there."

Blindness Offers Unique Relationship with Motion

Healey, an academic of disability studies at the University of Toronto, commented: "Visual impairment and being blind encourages a vibrant relationship with dance in a way that is like a expert performer's connection with their body and dance."

In partnering with the performers, she was attempting to convey what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not available through looking," she noted. "I converse with the performers to get a feeling of how they feel in their physical self, where their breathing is, what they consider, how their body are feeling.

"Partnering with the dance creators [and] attire, lighting, stage design and sound creators, the perceptions and innovation of visual impairment are always there as we, blind and seeing individuals, establish a connection through our affection of movement and dance. It is this artistry and love that I try to blend into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a cooperation of the faculties led by blindness."

She added: "Although the vision of the ballet, the stunning display, is available facing the patrons, there is so much that they’re not accessing or valuing, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging sighted and blind patrons alike into the unseen. What I desire is that, when patrons exit, they experience performance in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the existence, and listening to the viewpoints of, blindness in new and dynamic ways."

Composer The Composer on Audio Narration

The composer, whose recordings have amassed more than 3.5bn online plays, stated the spoken narration formed a connection between visual impairment and vision "via a soundscape, providing expression to that which does not always appear". He noted: "It is not just a explanation of a production. It is the art."

International Ballet Event Collaborators

The company's international partners for World Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will furthermore offer availability to backstage material, practice sessions and recently created productions – broadcast live via the event website.