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This prestigious ballet company traditionally provided audio devices with spoken commentary so that blind viewers could track the performance on stage. Presently, via a groundbreaking production, the entire crowd will hear such narration within a production that examines how lack of sight can redefine our reactions to sensation, sound and narrative.

Blind Artist Works with Celebrated Choreographers

The blind artist, a blind creator, is collaborating with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and musician the celebrated composer in creating a new ballet company work that will debut on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as declared this week.

Through her work, the artist is motivated by a wish to demonstrate how blindness and physical challenge can provide an unique form of awareness for each individual. Her detailed audio narration, integrated with the composition, creates the heart of the performance on stage.

"Making top-tier dance and musical theater for all" is a motto of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's leader, the troupe is concentrating on "total access – inviting performers and patrons to discover ballet in revolutionary innovative methods," he stated.

Various Choreographers Partner on Fresh Production

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

Robert Binet, the organizer of this work, commented: "International Ballet Day was established on the principle of access. After a decade, we're extending that concept deeper to examine how impaired perspectives can shape our performance style, and welcome audiences of every capability and backgrounds to experience ballet in innovative methods."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator realized that those with vision who had heard the artist's descriptive audio found it assisted them comprehend dance, which can seem so complex.

Touching Partnership Between Professional and Amateur Dancers

In a particular performance, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been sightless since birth and who had always thought that ballet was "mostly for sighted people". But the dancer has understood that it in fact "entails a lot of emotion and feelings" and activates perceptions, "sight-based and non-visual".

Kikuchi’s personal story of earlier getting lost on his way home and depending on the sun to guide his way back had motivated a duet in which the professional dancer represents the "soothing presence of the sun around Kikuchi as they dance in unison," Malcomson explained.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sunlight should be beaming from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the light itself, I could feel the warmth … So I continued moving to the west …. It directed me home. The sun was a great helper to me. The sunlight could be a powerful metaphor. So the narrative emerged from there."

Blindness Offers Special Relationship with Dance

The blind artist, an assistant professor of disability studies at the University of Toronto, stated: "Blindness and lacking sight fosters a active connection with motion in a way that is like a expert performer's relationship with their body and movement."

In collaborating with the dancers, the artist was striving to express what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not perceivable through looking," she noted. "I speak with the dancers to get a understanding of how they feel in their physical self, where their breath is, what they think, how their body are feeling.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] clothing, lighting, scenery and audio creators, the perceptions and innovation of visual impairment are ever present as we, blind and sighted people, establish a connection through our passion of dance and dance. It is this artistry and affection that I try to weave into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a partnership of the faculties directed by visual impairment."

The artist noted: "Although the sight of the ballet, the stunning visual feast, is there before the viewers, there is a great deal that they miss or appreciating, and it is visual impairment that is inviting seeing and visually impaired patrons equally into the invisible. What I hope is that, when patrons exit, they feel ballet in a different way, and they’re also feeling the being, and perceiving the perceptions of, visual impairment in new and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Audio Narration

The composer, whose compositions have amassed more than billions of online plays, stated the descriptive commentary created a connection between visual impairment and sight "by means of a musical landscape, providing expression to that which remains unseen". He noted: "It is not merely a description of a performance. It is the performance itself."

World Dance Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s global associates for World Ballet Day include the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The companies will also offer availability to behind-the-scenes material, preparations and newly commissioned works – streamed in real-time via online channels.