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The Royal Ballet traditionally offered headphones with audio descriptions so that visually impaired patrons could understand the performance on stage. Now, through a innovative new work, the complete crowd will listen to such narration within a work that examines how blindness can reshape our responses to feeling, sound and narrative.

Blind Artist Partners with Celebrated Choreographers

Devon Healey, a blind creator, is collaborating with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in developing a new Royal Ballet production that will premiere on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as announced recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is motivated by a ambition to show how visual impairment and disability can present an different form of perception for each individual. Her rich spoken descriptions, woven with the score, creates the heart of the show on stage.

"Producing world-class dance and opera for all" is a motto of the the organization. Under the director, the company's leader, the troupe is concentrating on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and patrons to experience ballet in life-changing new ways," he said.

Multiple Choreographers Work on New Production

The recent commission is being designed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, alongside McGregor, each working with the blind artist.

The curator, the organizer of this production, commented: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of access. After a ten years, we're expanding that concept more to examine how challenged viewpoints can mold our performance style, and invite viewers of all abilities and backgrounds to discover dance in fresh approaches."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canada and Australia, the curator realized that sighted people who had heard Healey’s descriptive audio found it assisted them comprehend dance, which can look so complex.

Touching Partnership Between Professional and Amateur Dancers

In a particular dance piece, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from birth and who had always thought that ballet was "primarily for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has discovered that it in fact "entails a lot of sensation and feelings" and activates senses, "visual and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s personal story of previously becoming disoriented on his way home and relying on the sun to orient his way back had motivated a duet in which Dixon embodies the "soothing presence of the sunlight around his partner as they move together," Malcomson stated.

"This occurred during the day and I had a sense that the sun should be radiating from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the light itself, I could perceive the temperature … So I persisted in walking to the west …. It directed me home. The sunshine was a excellent helper to me. The sun could be a powerful metaphor. So the narrative developed from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Special Connection with Dance

The blind artist, an scholar of disability research at the Toronto university, said: "Blindness and being blind encourages a active bond with movement in a way that is comparable to a expert performer's bond with their physical self and dance."

In collaborating with the dancers, the artist was attempting to convey what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not accessible through sight," she explained. "I converse with the dancers to get a understanding of how they’re feeling in their body, where their breathing is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are feeling.

"Working together with the choreographers [and] attire, illumination, stage design and music designers, the perceptions and innovation of visual impairment are always there as we, visually impaired and sighted individuals, build a rapport through our passion of dance and dance. It is this innovation and passion that I try to integrate into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the perceptions guided by blindness."

She added: "While the vision of the performance, the stunning visual feast, is present facing the patrons, there is a great deal that they overlook or understanding, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging seeing and visually impaired audience members alike into the unseen. What I desire is that, when patrons exit, they feel performance in a different way, and they’re also sensing the being, and listening to the understandings of, visual impairment in fresh and vibrant ways."

Composer The Composer on Audio Narration

The composer, whose compositions have amassed more than 3.5 billion digital listens, stated the spoken narration formed a rapport between visual impairment and sight "by means of a audio environment, offering narration to that which remains unseen". He continued: "It is not just a narration of a show. This is the performance itself."

World Dance Day Partners

The company's international collaborators for World Ballet Day include the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will furthermore provide entry to exclusive video, practice sessions and freshly produced pieces – broadcast live via online channels.