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The Royal Ballet has long made available audio devices with descriptive narration so that sightless viewers could follow the action on stage. Now, through a groundbreaking production, the whole gathering will hear such narration within a piece that investigates how lack of sight can redefine our responses to sensation, music and dramatic expression.

Blind Creator Collaborates with Famous Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired artist, is collaborating with Sir Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and musician the celebrated composer in producing a fresh Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as announced recently.

In her art, the artist is driven by a desire to illustrate how blindness and disability can offer an unique type of perception for each individual. Her detailed audio narration, integrated with the score, forms the core of the show on stage.

"Producing world-class dance and opera for all" is a guiding principle of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the company is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – encouraging artists and patrons to experience ballet in revolutionary fresh approaches," he stated.

Multiple Dance Creators Partner on Fresh Performance

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

The curator, the director of this commission, said: "World Ballet Day was created on the idea of inclusion. Following a decade, we're expanding that notion deeper to examine how disabled viewpoints can influence our creative medium, and welcome viewers of every capability and backgrounds to experience ballet in new ways."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator realized that individuals who can see who had heard the artist's spoken descriptions found it helped them understand ballet, which can look so unclear.

Touching Partnership Of Professional and Non-Professional Performers

In a particular duet, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been visually impaired from childhood and who had long assumed that dance was "primarily for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has realized that it in fact "involves a lot of emotion and feelings" and activates perceptions, "sight-based and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s unique narrative of previously getting lost on his way home and using the sun to guide his way back had motivated a duet in which Dixon embodies the "gentle warmth of the sunlight around his partner as they dance in unison," Malcomson explained.

"This occurred during the day and I had a sense that the sun should be shining from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the sunlight itself, I could sense the temperature … So I persisted in walking to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sunshine was a great guide to me. The sunlight could be a good metaphor. So the narrative emerged from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Distinct Connection with Movement

The blind artist, an scholar of disability research at the Toronto university, commented: "Visual impairment and being blind invites a dynamic bond with movement in a way that is like a professional dancer’s connection with their body and dance."

In working with the dancers, the artist was attempting to communicate what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not perceivable through vision," she noted. "I speak with the dancers to get a understanding of how they feel in their physical self, where their breathing is, what they consider, how their physical form are sensing.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] costume, lighting, stage design and audio artists, the understandings and creativity of visual impairment are constantly visible as we, blind and sighted people, build a relationship through our affection of movement and performance. It is this innovation and love that I try to integrate into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the senses guided by blindness."

The artist continued: "Even though the vision of the performance, the stunning display, is there facing the patrons, there is so much that they’re not accessing or appreciating, and it is visual impairment that is inviting seeing and visually impaired viewers alike into the hidden. What I wish is that, when viewers leave, they experience dance in a new way, and they’re also feeling the existence, and perceiving the perceptions of, blindness in innovative and vibrant ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Narration

The composer, whose recordings have accumulated more than billions of digital listens, commented the audio descriptions formed a relationship between blindness and sight "by means of a audio environment, offering narration to that which remains unseen". He noted: "This isn't simply a narration of a performance. This is the art."

International Dance Event Collaborators

The company's global associates for World Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will also supply access to behind-the-scenes material, practice sessions and recently created productions – transmitted in real-time via their official platform.