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The Royal Ballet has long made available headphones with descriptive narration so that sightless viewers could follow the performance on stage. Now, in a revolutionary production, the entire crowd will listen to such commentary within a work that examines how blindness can redefine our perceptions to experience, audio and dramatic expression.

Visually Impaired Creator Works with Celebrated Dance Creators

The blind artist, a visually impaired creator, is working with Sir Wayne McGregor, together with other dance creators, and composer the celebrated composer in developing a recent ballet company commission that will premiere on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed this week.

Within her creative practice, Healey is motivated by a ambition to demonstrate how blindness and physical challenge can provide an different mode of perception for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, integrated with the composition, establishes the heart of the production on stage.

"Making top-tier dance and musical theater for everyone" is a motto of the the organization. Under the director, the company's leader, the organization is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – inviting performers and patrons to encounter ballet in revolutionary fresh approaches," he said.

Various Choreographers Collaborate on Fresh Performance

The new work is being designed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, every one partnering with Healey.

Robert Binet, the organizer of this work, commented: "World Ballet Day was created on the principle of inclusion. After a ten years, we're expanding that notion more to examine how disabled outlooks can mold our art form, and invite viewers of all abilities and experiences to encounter ballet in new ways."

Having worked with the artist in Canada and Australian locations, he recognized that sighted people who had encountered the artist's spoken descriptions found it helped them understand ballet, which can look so unclear.

Touching Partnership Between Expert and Amateur Dancers

In one duet, the company's performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from birth and who had previously believed that ballet was "mostly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has understood that it in fact "involves a lot of emotion and sentiments" and activates perceptions, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's unique narrative of earlier losing his way on his way home and depending on the sun to direct his way back had inspired a performance in which Dixon becomes the "soothing presence of the sun around his partner as they move together," the choreographer explained.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be beaming from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could feel the heat … So I kept walking to the west …. It led me home. The sun was a great guide to me. The sun could be a meaningful symbol. So the story originated from there."

Blindness Provides Distinct Relationship with Dance

Healey, an scholar of disability studies at the University of Toronto, stated: "Visual impairment and being blind encourages a active bond with movement in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s relationship with their body and movement."

In working with the performers, she was attempting to communicate what "they’re experiencing in their body, something that’s just not available through sight," she noted. "I converse with the performers to get a sense of how they’re feeling in their body, where their respiration is, what they think, how their body are experiencing.

"Working together with the choreographers [and] clothing, lighting, set and music designers, the viewpoints and creativity of blindness are always there as we, blind and sighted individuals, establish a connection through our passion of dance and dance. It is this artistry and passion that I try to blend into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the faculties directed by blindness."

She continued: "While the vision of the performance, the stunning display, is available facing the viewers, there is much that they miss or appreciating, and it is blindness that is encouraging seeing and visually impaired audience members equally into the unseen. What I desire is that, when patrons exit, they sense performance in a different way, and they’re also feeling the presence, and hearing the perceptions of, blindness in new and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Narration

The composer, whose works have gathered more than 3.5bn digital listens, stated the spoken narration created a relationship between visual impairment and vision "through a musical landscape, offering narration to that which remains unseen". He noted: "It is not merely a narration of a performance. This is the performance itself."

International Dance Event Collaborators

The company's international partners for International Ballet Day include the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian dance troupe. The companies will furthermore provide access to backstage material, practice sessions and newly commissioned productions – broadcast as it happens via online channels.