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This prestigious ballet company traditionally offered audio devices with spoken commentary so that blind viewers could understand the action on stage. Currently, in a revolutionary performance, the complete crowd will listen to such descriptions within a piece that examines how lack of sight can redefine our reactions to sensation, sound and dramatic expression.

Blind Creator Works with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired creator, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in creating a recent ballet company work that will debut on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed recently.

Within her creative practice, the artist is guided by a desire to show how visual impairment and physical challenge can present an unique form of awareness for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, blended with the score, creates the core of the production on stage.

"Creating exceptional dance and opera for all" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under the director, the company's leader, the troupe is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – inviting artists and patrons to encounter dance in life-changing fresh approaches," he said.

Several Choreographers Work on Fresh Performance

The recent commission is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, every one collaborating with Healey.

Robert Binet, the curator of this production, stated: "World Ballet Day was established on the concept of access. After a ten years, we're pushing that idea more to examine how disabled perspectives can mold our art form, and welcome viewers of diverse capacities and histories to discover dance in fresh approaches."

Having worked with Healey in Canadian venues and Australia, the curator recognized that individuals who can see who had experienced Healey’s spoken descriptions believed it assisted them understand dance, which can look so abstract.

Moving Collaboration Between Expert and Amateur Dancers

In one performance, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless since birth and who had previously believed that dance was "primarily for those who can see". But the dancer has realized that it actually "involves a lot of sensation and sentiments" and engages perceptions, "visual and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s personal story of once getting lost on his way home and relying on the sunlight to direct his way back had influenced a performance in which Dixon becomes the "warm breath of the sun around Kikuchi as they dance in unison," Malcomson stated.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a intuition that the sun should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the rays itself, I could feel the temperature … So I kept walking to the west …. It directed me home. The sun was a excellent helper to me. The sun could be a good metaphor. So the tale emerged from there."

Blindness Offers Unique Connection with Dance

Healey, an scholar of disability studies at the Toronto university, stated: "Blindness and lacking sight invites a dynamic connection with movement in a way that is like a expert performer's bond with their body and motion."

In partnering with the dancers, the artist was striving to express what "they’re experiencing in their body, something that’s just not available through vision," she explained. "I talk with the performers to get a feeling of how they are in their body, where their respiration is, what they consider, how their physical form are sensing.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] clothing, illumination, set and audio creators, the perceptions and creativity of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing people, establish a rapport through our passion of dance and performance. It is this creativity and passion that I try to integrate into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the perceptions directed by visual impairment."

She continued: "While the sight of the dance, the gorgeous visual feast, is available in front of the patrons, there is so much that they’re not accessing or appreciating, and it is blindness that is encouraging sighted and visually impaired viewers equally into the hidden. What I wish is that, when viewers leave, they experience ballet in a new way, and they’re also feeling the presence, and listening to the viewpoints of, blindness in new and dynamic ways."

Musician Max Richter on Audio Narration

Richter, whose compositions have accumulated more than billions of streams, stated the audio descriptions formed a connection between blindness and vision "via a audio environment, giving voice to that which remains unseen". He noted: "This isn't merely a description of a show. It is the art."

International Ballet Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s international collaborators for World Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The troupes will additionally offer access to behind-the-scenes footage, preparations and recently created productions – transmitted in real-time via their official platform.