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The Royal Ballet has long made available audio devices with audio descriptions so that blind audience members could understand the movement on stage. Now, in a revolutionary new work, the complete gathering will hear such commentary within a production that investigates how blindness can reshape our reactions to feeling, audio and narrative.

Blind Artist Partners with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a visually impaired artist, is partnering with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in creating a recent Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as revealed this week.

Within her creative practice, Healey is guided by a ambition to illustrate how blindness and disability can provide an alternative mode of perception for each individual. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the score, forms the heart of the performance on stage.

"Producing world-class dance and musical theater for all" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's leader, the company is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and patrons to experience dance in revolutionary innovative methods," he explained.

Various Dance Creators Work on New Work

The recent commission is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, each working with Healey.

The curator, the organizer of this commission, commented: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of access. After a ten years, we're extending that idea more to examine how impaired outlooks can shape our art form, and invite viewers of all abilities and backgrounds to encounter ballet in new ways."

Having worked with the artist in Canadian venues and Australian locations, he realized that sighted people who had heard Healey’s descriptive audio believed it assisted them understand ballet, which can seem so complex.

Touching Partnership Of Professional and Amateur Performers

In a particular performance, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been visually impaired since birth and who had previously believed that ballet was "primarily for those who can see". But the dancer has realized that it actually "involves a lot of emotion and sentiments" and engages perceptions, "sight-based and other sensory".

The dancer's unique narrative of previously losing his way on his way home and using the sun to direct his way back had influenced a dance piece in which the professional dancer becomes the "warm breath of the sunlight around Kikuchi as they perform as one," the choreographer said.

"This occurred in the afternoon and I had a intuition that the sunlight should be radiating from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could perceive the temperature … So I continued moving to the west …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a good guide to me. The sun could be a powerful symbol. So the story emerged from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Unique Connection with Motion

The blind artist, an academic of disability studies at the University of Toronto, stated: "Blindness and being blind encourages a dynamic relationship with movement in a way that is similar to a expert performer's bond with their body and motion."

In working with the performers, she was striving to express what "they’re experiencing in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through sight," she explained. "I converse with the dancers to get a understanding of how they’re feeling in their physical self, where their respiration is, what they think, how their body are feeling.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] clothing, illumination, set and audio designers, the understandings and creativity of visual impairment are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing individuals, build a relationship through our love of movement and dance. It is this creativity and passion that I try to integrate into the detailed narration. It is a collaboration of the faculties led by blindness."

The artist added: "Although the view of the dance, the stunning spectacle, is available before the audience, there is a great deal that they miss or valuing, and it is visual impairment that is welcoming seeing and blind patrons alike into the hidden. What I wish is that, when viewers exit, they experience dance in a different way, and they’re also sensing the existence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in innovative and dynamic ways."

Musician The Composer on Audio Descriptions

Richter, whose recordings have accumulated more than billions of digital listens, commented the audio descriptions formed a connection between visual impairment and vision "through a musical landscape, offering narration to that which is not always visible". He added: "It is not simply a explanation of a performance. This is the performance itself."

International Dance Day Collaborators

The company's international associates for International Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will additionally offer entry to behind-the-scenes material, rehearsals and freshly produced works – transmitted as it happens via online channels.