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The Royal Ballet traditionally provided headphones with audio descriptions so that sightless patrons could understand the performance on stage. Currently, through a revolutionary new work, the entire audience will experience such narration within a work that examines how lack of sight can redefine our perceptions to feeling, audio and storytelling.

Blind Creator Collaborates with Celebrated Choreographers

Devon Healey, a blind artist, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in creating a recent Royal Ballet work that will debut on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as announced recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is driven by a wish to illustrate how visual impairment and disability can present an alternative mode of awareness for all people. Her detailed audio narration, integrated with the music, forms the core of the production on stage.

"Making exceptional ballet and musical theater for all" is a motto of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's leader, the company is zeroing in on "total access – encouraging performers and patrons to discover dance in transformative innovative methods," he stated.

Several Dance Creators Collaborate on Fresh Work

The new work is being designed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to McGregor, each collaborating with Healey.

The curator, the curator of this production, commented: "World Ballet Day was created on the principle of accessibility. After a ten years, we're pushing that idea deeper to examine how impaired viewpoints can shape our creative medium, and welcome audiences of all abilities and experiences to experience ballet in fresh approaches."

Having worked with the artist in Canadian venues and Australia, he recognized that sighted people who had heard the artist's descriptive audio felt it helped them comprehend ballet, which can seem so complex.

Inspiring Collaboration Between Professional and Amateur Dancers

In a particular duet, the company's performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been sightless from birth and who had previously believed that ballet was "mostly for those who can see". But Kikuchi has realized that it in fact "involves a lot of emotion and emotions" and activates senses, "sight-based and non-visual".

The dancer's unique narrative of earlier getting lost on his way home and relying on the sunlight to orient his way back had motivated a dance piece in which Dixon represents the "gentle warmth of the sunlight around his partner as they perform as one," the choreographer explained.

"It was mid-afternoon and I had a sense that the sun should be beaming from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the rays itself, I could sense the heat … So I kept walking to the western direction …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a excellent assistant to me. The sunlight could be a meaningful metaphor. So the story originated from there."

Visual Impairment Offers Unique Relationship with Movement

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability research at the University of Toronto, said: "Visual impairment and being blind invites a active bond with movement in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s relationship with their physical self and movement."

In partnering with the performers, she was striving to convey what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not available through sight," she explained. "I converse with the dancers to get a understanding of how they are in their physical self, where their breath is, what they think, how their muscles are experiencing.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] costume, stage lights, stage design and sound designers, the understandings and creativity of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing people, establish a rapport through our passion of motion and dance. It is this creativity and affection that I strive to blend into the detailed narration. It is a collaboration of the faculties directed by blindness."

She noted: "Even though the view of the performance, the stunning visual feast, is available in front of the viewers, there is so much that they miss or understanding, and it is blindness that is encouraging seeing and visually impaired viewers alike into the hidden. What I hope is that, when patrons exit, they feel performance in a distinct way, and they’re also sensing the existence, and perceiving the understandings of, visual impairment in innovative and active ways."

Musician Max Richter on Sound Narration

The composer, whose recordings have amassed more than 3.5bn streams, said the audio descriptions created a rapport between blindness and sight "via a soundscape, giving voice to that which remains unseen". He noted: "This isn't just a narration of a show. This is the performance itself."

World Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international partners for International Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The companies will furthermore offer access to backstage material, rehearsals and recently created works – transmitted live via their official platform.