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The Royal Ballet for years provided audio devices with descriptive narration so that blind patrons could follow the movement on stage. Now, in a groundbreaking new work, the complete crowd will experience such narration within a production that explores how blindness can transform our responses to feeling, audio and storytelling.

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 the celebrated composer in developing a recent ballet company production that will debut on November 12th, World Ballet Day, as declared on Thursday.

Within her creative practice, Healey is motivated by a wish to illustrate how blindness and disability can provide an alternative mode of awareness for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, blended with the music, establishes the heart of the performance on stage.

"Making top-tier ballet and opera for all" is a guiding principle of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the company is concentrating on "total access – inviting performers and patrons to discover dance in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Various Choreographers Collaborate on Fresh Performance

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

Robert Binet, the organizer of this commission, commented: "World Ballet Day was established on the principle of accessibility. After a decade, we're extending that idea further to consider how impaired outlooks can influence our performance style, and welcome patrons of every capability and backgrounds to encounter ballet in fresh approaches."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canada and Australia, the curator understood that those with vision who had experienced the artist's spoken descriptions believed it assisted them understand ballet, which can look so complex.

Inspiring Collaboration Between Expert and Amateur Performers

In a particular performance, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been blind from childhood and who had previously believed that dance was "primarily for those who can see". But Kikuchi has discovered that it actually "includes a lot of emotion and feelings" and engages faculties, "sight-based and non-sight".

The dancer's personal story of once becoming disoriented on his way home and depending on the sun to guide his way back had motivated a performance in which the professional dancer embodies the "gentle warmth of the sun around his partner as they perform as one," the choreographer stated.

"This occurred in the afternoon and I had a intuition that the sun should be radiating from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the light itself, I could perceive the heat … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It guided me home. The sun was a good assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful metaphor. So the story developed from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Special Relationship with Dance

Healey, an academic of disability research at the University of Toronto, commented: "Blindness and lacking sight invites a dynamic connection with movement in a way that is like a professional dancer’s relationship with their body and movement."

In working with the dancers, the artist was striving to express what "they perceive in their physical being, something that’s just not available through looking," she explained. "I speak with the dancers to get a understanding of how they feel in their body, where their breath is, what they think, how their body are sensing.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] attire, stage lights, stage design and audio artists, the viewpoints and innovation of blindness are always there as we, visually impaired and sighted people, build a connection through our love of motion and performance. It is this innovation and passion that I strive to blend into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the perceptions guided by blindness."

She added: "Although the vision of the performance, the gorgeous visual feast, is present facing the viewers, there is so much that they’re not accessing or valuing, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging sighted and visually impaired audience members equally into the invisible. What I hope is that, when viewers exit, they feel dance in a distinct way, and they’re also sensing the existence, and perceiving the understandings of, visual impairment in fresh and vibrant ways."

Composer Max Richter on Sound Descriptions

The composer, whose recordings have gathered more than billions of streams, commented the spoken narration created a rapport between blindness and vision "through a musical landscape, giving voice to that which is not always visible". He added: "This isn't just a explanation of a production. It is the performance itself."

International Ballet Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international associates for World Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will furthermore supply entry to behind-the-scenes material, rehearsals and freshly produced productions – streamed in real-time via the event website.