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This prestigious ballet company has long provided audio devices with spoken commentary so that visually impaired audience members could follow the action on stage. Currently, in a revolutionary production, the whole gathering will listen to such narration within a work that investigates how visual impairment can reshape our perceptions to sensation, audio and dramatic expression.

Blind Artist Works with Renowned Choreographers

Devon Healey, a visually impaired artist, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, alongside other dance creators, and musician the celebrated composer in developing a fresh ballet company commission that will premiere on November 12th, World Ballet Day, as revealed on Thursday.

Through her work, Healey is driven by a desire to show how visual impairment and physical challenge can present an different form of perception for each individual. Her rich spoken descriptions, integrated with the composition, creates the heart of the production on stage.

"Making exceptional dance and opera for each person" is a motto of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the troupe is concentrating on "total access – welcoming creators and viewers to encounter dance in revolutionary fresh approaches," he explained.

Various Choreographers Collaborate on New Production

The new work is being choreographed by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, in addition to McGregor, all collaborating with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the organizer of this work, stated: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of access. After a decade, we're expanding that notion more to consider how impaired perspectives can influence our creative medium, and encourage patrons of all abilities and backgrounds to experience dance in new ways."

Following partnerships with the artist in Canada and Australia, he recognized that individuals who can see who had encountered Healey’s descriptive audio believed it aided them comprehend ballet, which can look so unclear.

Moving Collaboration Between Professional and Non-Professional Dancers

In one duet, the Royal Ballet dancer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been blind from birth and who had long assumed that ballet was "primarily for individuals with vision". But the dancer has realized that it in fact "involves a lot of feeling and sentiments" and activates faculties, "visual and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of previously losing his way on his way home and relying on the sun to orient his way back had influenced a duet in which Dixon represents the "soothing presence of the sun around Kikuchi as they perform as one," the choreographer stated.

"It was mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sunlight should be shining from the west. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I couldn't see the rays itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I persisted in walking to the west …. It led me home. The sun was a good assistant to me. The sun could be a meaningful metaphor. So the tale developed from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Special Connection with Dance

Healey, an assistant professor of disability research at the University of Toronto, said: "Blindness and lacking sight invites a active bond with motion in a way that is like a professional dancer’s connection with their body and dance."

In partnering with the dancers, she was seeking to convey what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not accessible through looking," she said. "I talk with the performers to get a sense of how they are in their physical self, where their breath is, what they’re thinking, how their muscles are feeling.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] attire, stage lights, stage design and audio designers, the perceptions and artistry of blindness are always there as we, blind and seeing persons, establish a rapport through our passion of dance and dance. It is this innovation and passion that I attempt to weave into the detailed narration. It is a collaboration of the senses directed by blindness."

The artist noted: "While the view of the ballet, the stunning display, is present facing the patrons, there is much that they’re not accessing or understanding, and it is blindness that is inviting sighted and blind viewers alike into the invisible. What I hope is that, when patrons depart, they experience ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the being, and perceiving the viewpoints of, blindness in new and dynamic ways."

Composer Max Richter on Sound Narration

The composer, whose recordings have amassed more than 3.5bn streams, stated the audio descriptions established a relationship between blindness and vision "through a musical landscape, giving voice to that which does not always appear". He added: "It is not just a narration of a production. This is performance."

International Dance Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s global partners for World Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The troupes will additionally offer entry to behind-the-scenes video, rehearsals and freshly produced pieces – streamed as it happens via their official platform.