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This prestigious ballet company traditionally made available audio devices with audio descriptions so that visually impaired viewers could follow the performance on stage. Now, through a revolutionary new work, the complete gathering will experience such commentary within a production that investigates how lack of sight can redefine our perceptions to sensation, audio and dramatic expression.

Visually Impaired Artist Works with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired creator, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and musician the celebrated composer in producing a fresh Royal Ballet work that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as announced on Thursday.

Through her work, the artist is motivated by a desire to show how visual impairment and disability can offer an alternative type of awareness for each individual. Her detailed audio narration, blended with the music, creates the core of the production on stage.

"Making world-class dance and opera for everyone" is a guiding principle of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's leader, the troupe is concentrating on "complete inclusion – encouraging creators and patrons to encounter dance in transformative new ways," he said.

Multiple Dance Creators Partner on New Production

The fresh production is being choreographed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, every one working with Healey.

The curator, the director of this commission, commented: "World Ballet Day was established on the idea of inclusion. After a ten years, we're expanding that idea further to examine how impaired perspectives can shape our art form, and invite patrons of diverse capacities and histories to discover ballet in fresh approaches."

Having worked with the artist in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator realized that those with vision who had heard the artist's spoken descriptions felt it helped them understand dance, which can appear so complex.

Moving Collaboration Of Professional and Non-Professional Dancers

In a particular performance, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from birth and who had long assumed that dance was "mainly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has understood that it actually "entails a lot of feeling and sentiments" and engages faculties, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's unique narrative of once losing his way on his way home and using the sun to orient his way back had motivated a performance in which Dixon represents the "warm breath of the sunlight around his partner as they perform as one," Malcomson stated.

"It was in the afternoon and I had a sense that the sun should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could feel the temperature … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a great assistant to me. The sun could be a powerful symbol. So the story emerged from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Special Connection with Motion

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability research at the University of Toronto, commented: "Visual impairment and being blind encourages a vibrant connection with dance in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s connection with their physical self and dance."

In partnering with the performers, the artist was attempting to communicate what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through sight," she said. "I converse with the dancers to get a sense of how they feel in their physical self, where their breathing is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are feeling.

"Partnering with the choreographers [and] attire, lighting, stage design and sound creators, the understandings and artistry of blindness are constantly visible as we, blind and seeing individuals, establish a relationship through our affection of dance and dance. It is this innovation and affection that I try to blend into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a cooperation of the perceptions guided by visual impairment."

She noted: "Although the sight of the ballet, the beautiful display, is available in front of the audience, there is a great deal that they miss or valuing, and it is blindness that is encouraging sighted and blind patrons alike into the unseen. What I hope is that, when audience members depart, they feel performance in a distinct way, and they’re also experiencing the being, and hearing the understandings of, blindness in fresh and dynamic ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Narration

The composer, whose compositions have amassed more than 3.5 billion digital listens, commented the audio descriptions established a rapport between visual impairment and vision "through a soundscape, giving voice to that which remains unseen". He added: "It is not just a explanation of a production. It is the art."

World Ballet Day Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international partners for International Ballet Day comprise the Canadian ballet company and the Australian Ballet. The troupes will furthermore offer entry to behind-the-scenes material, rehearsals and freshly produced works – streamed as it happens via online channels.