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This prestigious ballet company traditionally provided headphones with audio descriptions so that sightless audience members could understand the movement on stage. Now, through a groundbreaking performance, the complete crowd will hear such descriptions within a piece that investigates how lack of sight can transform our reactions to sensation, sound and storytelling.

Blind Creator Collaborates with Renowned Choreographers

Devon Healey, a blind artist, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and musician Max Richter in creating a fresh Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on November 12th, World Ballet Day, as revealed this week.

Through her work, Healey is guided by a wish to illustrate how blindness and disability can offer an different type of awareness for each individual. Her detailed audio narration, integrated with the composition, creates the core of the production on stage.

"Creating world-class dance and musical theater for everyone" is a mission statement of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's leader, the organization is zeroing in on "total access – encouraging artists and patrons to encounter dance in transformative innovative methods," he stated.

Several Choreographers Partner on Fresh Work

The fresh production is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, all working with the blind artist.

The curator, the organizer of this work, commented: "World Ballet Day was founded on the principle of access. Following a ten years, we're expanding that idea more to examine how disabled perspectives can influence our performance style, and welcome audiences of all abilities and experiences to experience ballet in innovative methods."

Having worked with the artist in Canadian venues and Australia, he understood that those with vision who had heard the artist's spoken descriptions believed it helped them grasp dance, which can seem so complex.

Inspiring Partnership Between Expert and Amateur Dancers

In one duet, the company's performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been visually impaired from birth and who had long assumed that ballet was "primarily for sighted people". But the dancer has realized that it in fact "includes a lot of emotion and feelings" and activates senses, "visual and non-visual".

Kikuchi’s unique narrative of once losing his way 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 sun around Kikuchi as they dance in unison," the choreographer explained.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be beaming from the west. So, if I faced the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the rays itself, I could perceive the heat … So I kept walking to the west …. It guided me home. The sunshine was a excellent helper to me. The sunlight could be a meaningful representation. So the tale developed from there."

Blindness Provides Distinct Relationship with Movement

The blind artist, an scholar of disability studies at the University of Toronto, commented: "Visual impairment and lacking sight fosters a dynamic bond with movement in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s relationship with their physical self and movement."

In partnering with the dancers, she was seeking to express what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through vision," she explained. "I speak with the dancers to get a understanding of how they feel in their physical self, where their respiration is, what they think, how their muscles are feeling.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] costume, lighting, set and sound designers, the understandings and innovation of visual impairment are always there as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, establish a connection through our passion of dance and dance. It is this artistry and affection that I attempt to weave into the spoken commentary. It is a collaboration of the perceptions directed by visual impairment."

She continued: "Even though the view of the dance, the beautiful display, is present facing the patrons, there is so much that they’re not accessing or understanding, and it is blindness that is welcoming seeing and visually impaired audience members alike into the hidden. What I hope is that, when audience members leave, they experience ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also sensing the being, and hearing the viewpoints of, blindness in fresh and dynamic ways."

Composer The Composer on Sound Descriptions

Richter, whose compositions have amassed more than 3.5 billion digital listens, stated the spoken narration established a relationship between blindness and sight "through a audio environment, providing expression to that which remains unseen". He continued: "This isn't simply a description of a production. This is the performance itself."

World Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s international partners for World Ballet Day comprise the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also offer entry to exclusive footage, preparations and newly commissioned works – broadcast live via online channels.