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The Royal Ballet for years provided audio devices with spoken commentary so that visually impaired viewers could follow the action on stage. Now, in a groundbreaking performance, the whole audience will hear such commentary within a work that investigates how blindness can redefine our responses to experience, music and dramatic expression.

Visually Impaired Creator Works with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired artist, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and composer the celebrated composer in creating a new Royal Ballet work that will debut on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as revealed this week.

Within her creative practice, the artist is driven by a wish to demonstrate how visual impairment and disability can offer an different form of perception for each individual. Her rich spoken descriptions, woven with the music, establishes the center of the production on stage.

"Making exceptional dance and opera for all" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's leader, the company is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – inviting performers and patrons to discover dance in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Multiple Choreographers Partner on New Work

The recent commission is being created by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to Wayne McGregor, all working with the blind artist.

The curator, the curator of this work, said: "International Ballet Day was created on the principle of accessibility. After a ten years, we're pushing that notion deeper to explore how disabled perspectives can shape our performance style, and invite audiences of every capability and experiences to discover ballet in new ways."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canadian venues and Australian locations, he recognized that those with vision who had experienced Healey’s descriptive audio felt it assisted them understand dance, which can appear so unclear.

Moving Partnership Of Expert and Amateur Performers

In a particular duet, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been blind from birth and who had long assumed that ballet was "mainly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has discovered that it in fact "entails a lot of feeling and sentiments" and engages faculties, "sight-based and non-visual".

The dancer's unique narrative of once getting lost on his way home and relying on the sun to guide his way back had influenced a performance in which the professional dancer represents the "soothing presence of the sun around his partner as they move together," the choreographer said.

"This occurred during the day and I had a feeling that the sunlight should be beaming from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could feel the warmth … So I continued moving to the west …. It guided me home. The sun was a excellent assistant to me. The sun could be a powerful representation. So the narrative originated from there."

Visual Impairment Offers Special Connection with Motion

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability research at the University of Toronto, commented: "Blindness and being blind encourages a active bond with dance in a way that is comparable to a expert performer's relationship with their body and dance."

In partnering with the dancers, she was attempting to convey what "they perceive in their physical being, something that’s just not available through looking," she said. "I speak with the performers to get a sense of how they’re feeling in their physical self, where their breathing is, what they think, how their body are feeling.

"In collaboration with the dance creators [and] costume, lighting, set and music creators, the viewpoints and creativity of visual impairment are ever present as we, blind and sighted persons, develop a relationship through our affection of motion and dance. It is this artistry and affection that I attempt to weave into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the faculties guided by blindness."

She continued: "While the sight of the dance, the beautiful spectacle, is available before the audience, there is much that they’re not accessing or understanding, and it is blindness that is inviting sighted and visually impaired viewers equally into the invisible. What I wish is that, when audience members depart, they sense performance in a new way, and they’re also sensing the being, and perceiving the understandings of, visual impairment in fresh and dynamic ways."

Musician The Composer on Audio Descriptions

The composer, whose works have amassed more than billions of online plays, stated the audio descriptions formed a relationship between blindness and vision "via a audio environment, providing expression to that which is not always visible". He noted: "This isn't just a description of a production. It is performance."

World Ballet Day Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s worldwide associates for International Ballet Day comprise the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will additionally offer access to exclusive video, preparations and recently created productions – broadcast live via their official platform.