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The Royal Ballet has long offered headphones with audio descriptions so that blind audience members could understand the performance on stage. Presently, through a revolutionary production, the entire gathering will experience such narration within a piece that explores how blindness can redefine our perceptions to sensation, sound and dramatic expression.

Blind Creator Partners with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind creator, is collaborating with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and musician Max Richter in creating a fresh Royal Ballet production that will premiere on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as declared recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is driven by a desire to illustrate how visual impairment and physical challenge can present an unique form of perception for each individual. Her rich spoken descriptions, integrated with the score, forms the heart of the show on stage.

"Creating top-tier ballet and opera for each person" is a guiding principle of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the company is focusing on "radical accessibility – welcoming artists and patrons to experience ballet in revolutionary fresh approaches," he said.

Several Dance Creators Collaborate on New Production

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

Robert Binet, the organizer of this commission, commented: "International Ballet Day was created on the idea of inclusion. After a ten years, we're extending that concept more to examine how impaired outlooks can shape our creative medium, and invite patrons of diverse capacities and experiences to encounter ballet in fresh approaches."

After collaborating with the artist in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator realized that those with vision who had experienced the artist's audio narration found it aided them comprehend ballet, which can seem so complex.

Inspiring Partnership Between Professional and Amateur Performers

In one duet, the company's performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been blind from childhood and who had long assumed that dance was "primarily for sighted people". But the dancer has discovered that it truly "involves a lot of feeling and emotions" and taps into senses, "sight-based and non-visual".

The dancer's personal story of once losing his way on his way home and relying on the sunlight to direct his way back had inspired a performance in which the professional dancer becomes the "gentle warmth of the sunlight around his partner as they move together," Malcomson said.

"It was mid-afternoon and I had a sense that the sun should be radiating from the west. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the sunlight itself, I could sense the warmth … So I persisted in walking to the western direction …. It led me home. The sunshine was a good assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful symbol. So the story developed from there."

Blindness Provides Special Relationship with Movement

Healey, an academic of disability research at the University of Toronto, commented: "Blindness and being blind invites a vibrant bond with dance in a way that is similar to a expert performer's bond with their body and movement."

In collaborating with the dancers, she was seeking to convey what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not available through sight," she explained. "I talk with the dancers to get a sense of how they are in their body, where their respiration is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are sensing.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] clothing, illumination, scenery and music creators, the viewpoints and innovation of visual impairment are always there as we, visually impaired and seeing people, build a connection through our affection of dance and dance. It is this innovation and passion that I strive to weave into the spoken commentary. It is a cooperation of the perceptions guided by visual impairment."

The artist noted: "While the vision of the ballet, the stunning visual feast, is present in front of the viewers, there is a great deal that they’re not accessing or appreciating, and it is visual impairment that is encouraging seeing and blind audience members equally into the invisible. What I wish is that, when viewers leave, they sense performance in a different way, and they’re also feeling the existence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in fresh and vibrant ways."

Composer The Composer on Sound Narration

The composer, whose works have amassed more than 3.5 billion streams, stated the audio descriptions established a rapport between visual impairment and vision "via a musical landscape, giving voice to that which remains unseen". He added: "This isn't simply a narration of a production. This is the performance itself."

International Dance Day Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s global partners for International Ballet Day include the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also offer entry to backstage material, practice sessions and freshly produced productions – transmitted live via online channels.