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The Royal Ballet for years offered audio devices with audio descriptions so that blind patrons could follow the action on stage. Now, in a innovative new work, the complete audience will listen to such commentary within a production that explores how visual impairment can reshape our responses to sensation, music and dramatic expression.

Blind Creator Collaborates with Renowned Choreographers

The blind artist, a visually impaired creator, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and musician Max Richter in producing a new Royal Ballet production that will launch on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as declared on Thursday.

Within her creative practice, Healey is driven by a ambition to show how visual impairment and disability can present an unique mode of perception for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, woven with the composition, forms the heart of the show on stage.

"Creating exceptional ballet and opera for each person" is a motto of the the organization. Under the director, the company's director, the organization is focusing on "complete inclusion – inviting performers and viewers to experience dance in life-changing new ways," he explained.

Various Dance Creators Partner on Fresh Work

The fresh production is being choreographed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, all partnering with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the director of this production, commented: "World Ballet Day was founded on the principle of inclusion. Following a ten years, we're extending that notion further to explore how disabled viewpoints can shape our art form, and invite viewers of every capability and backgrounds to discover ballet in fresh approaches."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canadian venues and Australia, he recognized that those with vision who had encountered Healey’s spoken descriptions felt it helped them grasp ballet, which can look so unclear.

Moving Partnership Between Expert and Amateur Performers

In a particular dance piece, the company's performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from birth and who had always thought that dance was "mainly for those who can see". But Kikuchi has understood that it in fact "entails a lot of feeling and emotions" and taps into perceptions, "sight-based and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s personal story of earlier getting lost on his way home and using the sunlight to direct his way back had influenced a duet in which the professional dancer represents the "warm breath of the sun around his partner as they perform as one," Malcomson explained.

"This occurred during the day and I had a feeling that the sunlight should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the light itself, I could feel the warmth … So I persisted in walking to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sunshine was a great assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful metaphor. So the tale emerged from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Unique Connection with Movement

Healey, an scholar of disability research at the University of Toronto, said: "Visual impairment and being blind encourages a active connection with motion in a way that is similar to a professional dancer’s relationship with their physical self and motion."

In collaborating with the performers, she was attempting to express what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not perceivable through sight," she explained. "I speak with the dancers to get a feeling of how they are in their body, where their breathing is, what they think, how their muscles are feeling.

"Partnering with the choreographers [and] clothing, lighting, scenery and audio creators, the viewpoints and innovation of visual impairment are ever present as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, develop a connection through our passion of motion and performance. It is this artistry and love that I try to integrate into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a cooperation of the senses directed by visual impairment."

She continued: "While the vision of the dance, the beautiful spectacle, is available before the viewers, there is so much that they miss or appreciating, and it is blindness that is inviting sighted and blind audience members equally into the invisible. What I desire is that, when patrons depart, they sense ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also experiencing the presence, and hearing the viewpoints of, blindness in new and dynamic ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Descriptions

The composer, whose works have amassed more than 3.5 billion streams, stated the descriptive commentary formed a rapport between blindness and vision "via a soundscape, providing expression to that which remains unseen". He noted: "It is not simply a explanation of a production. This is performance."

International Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s global collaborators for World Ballet Day include the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The troupes will furthermore offer availability to backstage footage, preparations and recently created pieces – transmitted as it happens via their official platform.