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The Royal Ballet has long made available audio devices with spoken commentary so that blind audience members could track the performance on stage. Presently, through a groundbreaking new work, the entire audience will hear such descriptions within a work that examines how visual impairment can reshape our responses to experience, music and dramatic expression.

Blind Artist Collaborates with Famous Choreographers

Devon Healey, a blind creator, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other dance creators, and composer Max Richter in developing a fresh ballet company commission that will debut on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as declared on Thursday.

In her art, Healey is motivated by a wish to demonstrate how visual impairment and physical challenge can provide an alternative mode of awareness for everyone. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, integrated with the composition, creates the heart of the performance on stage.

"Producing exceptional dance and musical theater for all" is a guiding principle of the the organization. Under the director, the company's leader, the organization is zeroing in on "complete inclusion – welcoming performers and audiences to encounter dance in revolutionary innovative methods," he said.

Multiple Dance Creators Collaborate on Fresh Work

The new work is being designed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, each partnering with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the organizer of this commission, stated: "World Ballet Day was founded on the principle of access. Following a ten years, we're extending that notion more to consider how challenged outlooks can shape our art form, and encourage viewers of all abilities and experiences to encounter ballet in new ways."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canadian venues and Australian locations, he realized that those with vision who had heard Healey’s audio narration felt it aided them grasp dance, which can appear so complex.

Touching Collaboration Between Professional and Non-Professional Dancers

In one duet, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been sightless from birth and who had always thought that dance was "mostly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has understood that it in fact "involves a lot of emotion and sentiments" and taps into faculties, "sight-based and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s unique narrative of earlier becoming disoriented on his way home and depending on the sunlight to orient his way back had inspired a duet in which Dixon represents the "soothing presence of the sunlight around his partner as they move together," the choreographer stated.

"It was in the afternoon and I had a feeling that the sunlight should be shining from the western sky. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I kept walking to the west …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a great assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful metaphor. So the tale originated from there."

Blindness Offers Unique Connection with Motion

The blind artist, an academic of disability studies at the Toronto university, stated: "Visual impairment and lacking sight encourages a vibrant connection with movement in a way that is like a expert performer's connection with their physical self and movement."

In partnering with the performers, the artist was seeking to communicate what "they feel in their body, something that’s just not accessible through sight," she said. "I speak with the dancers to get a understanding of how they are in their physical self, where their breath is, what they think, how their physical form are experiencing.

"Working together with the choreographers [and] attire, lighting, scenery and music artists, the perceptions and innovation of blindness are ever present as we, visually impaired and seeing people, build a relationship through our love of dance and dance. It is this innovation and passion that I strive to blend into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the perceptions led by visual impairment."

The artist noted: "While the sight of the ballet, the stunning visual feast, is present before the patrons, there is much that they overlook or valuing, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging seeing and blind audience members equally into the invisible. What I desire is that, when viewers leave, they sense ballet in a new way, and they’re also experiencing the presence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in innovative and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Sound Narration

The composer, whose recordings have amassed more than 3.5bn online plays, stated the audio descriptions formed a connection between blindness and sight "via a musical landscape, giving voice to that which does not always appear". He noted: "This isn't merely a explanation of a production. This is the performance itself."

International Ballet Event Collaborators

The company's international collaborators for International Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will furthermore offer availability to exclusive footage, rehearsals and freshly produced works – streamed as it happens via online channels.