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The Royal Ballet has long offered headphones with audio descriptions so that visually impaired viewers could follow the performance on stage. Presently, through a revolutionary new work, the whole gathering will listen to such commentary within a production that investigates how visual impairment can redefine our reactions to experience, sound and storytelling.

Blind Artist Partners with Famous Dance Creators

The blind artist, a visually impaired professional, is collaborating with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and composer Max Richter in producing a new ballet company commission that will premiere on November 12th, World Ballet Day, as revealed recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is guided by a ambition to demonstrate how blindness and physical challenge can provide an alternative form of understanding for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, blended with the score, establishes the core of the production on stage.

"Creating world-class dance and musical theater for each person" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the organization is zeroing in on "radical accessibility – welcoming performers and viewers to experience dance in life-changing new ways," he stated.

Various Dance Creators Partner on New Production

The new work is being designed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, alongside McGregor, every one working with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the director of this work, said: "World Ballet Day was established on the principle of inclusion. After a decade, we're extending that notion further to examine how disabled outlooks can shape our art form, and welcome audiences of all abilities and experiences to experience ballet in innovative methods."

Having worked with Healey in Canadian venues and Australia, he recognized that those with vision who had experienced Healey’s audio narration found it aided them comprehend ballet, which can seem so unclear.

Touching Partnership Between Professional and Non-Professional Dancers

In one dance piece, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired from childhood and who had always thought that dance was "mostly for those who can see". But the dancer has discovered that it truly "includes a lot of sensation and feelings" and engages faculties, "sight-based and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of previously becoming disoriented on his way home and relying on the sunlight to orient his way back had influenced a performance in which Dixon represents the "gentle warmth of the sunlight around his partner as they move together," the choreographer said.

"It was during the day and I had a intuition that the sun should be radiating from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the rays itself, I could sense the temperature … So I persisted in walking to the west …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a excellent assistant to me. The sun could be a powerful metaphor. So the story originated from there."

Visual Impairment Offers Special Relationship with Movement

The blind artist, an scholar of disability studies at the Toronto university, commented: "Visual impairment and being blind fosters a vibrant relationship with motion in a way that is comparable to a expert performer's relationship with their physical self and dance."

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

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] clothing, lighting, set and music designers, the viewpoints and innovation of visual impairment are ever present as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, develop a rapport through our passion 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 perceptions led by visual impairment."

She noted: "Although the view of the performance, the beautiful spectacle, is available facing the audience, there is so much that they’re not accessing or appreciating, and it is blindness that is welcoming seeing and blind patrons equally into the hidden. What I wish is that, when viewers exit, they feel performance in a new way, and they’re also sensing the existence, and listening to the perceptions of, visual impairment in innovative and vibrant ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Descriptions

Richter, whose works have amassed more than 3.5bn online plays, commented the spoken narration created a relationship between visual impairment and sight "via a soundscape, giving voice to that which does not always appear". He continued: "It is not simply a narration of a production. It is the performance itself."

International Ballet Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s international collaborators for International Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The companies will also supply availability to exclusive material, preparations and freshly produced pieces – broadcast in real-time via online channels.