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This prestigious ballet company for years made available audio devices with audio descriptions so that visually impaired audience members could follow the movement on stage. Now, through a groundbreaking new work, the entire audience will hear such commentary within a production that investigates how visual impairment can reshape our responses to feeling, audio and storytelling.

Visually Impaired Artist Partners with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind creator, is partnering with Sir Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and musician the celebrated composer in creating a new ballet company commission that will debut on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as revealed recently.

Within her creative practice, Healey is motivated by a ambition to show how visual impairment and disability can offer an unique type of perception for all people. Her rich spoken descriptions, woven with the score, establishes the heart of the show on stage.

"Making exceptional ballet and musical theater for everyone" is a guiding principle of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's leader, the company is zeroing in on "total access – welcoming performers and patrons to encounter dance in revolutionary new ways," he said.

Multiple Dance Creators Work on Fresh Work

The recent commission is being created by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as McGregor, each working with Healey.

Robert Binet, the director of this work, said: "International Ballet Day was established on the idea of access. Following a ten years, we're expanding that idea further to explore how impaired outlooks can influence our performance style, and welcome audiences of all abilities and experiences to encounter dance in innovative methods."

Having worked with Healey in Canadian venues and Australian locations, the curator realized that individuals who can see who had encountered Healey’s spoken descriptions believed it aided them understand dance, which can appear so complex.

Moving Partnership Between Expert and Non-Professional Dancers

In a particular performance, the company's dancer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been visually impaired from childhood and who had always thought that ballet was "mostly for sighted people". But the dancer has understood that it truly "entails a lot of emotion and emotions" and taps into faculties, "visual and non-sight".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of earlier losing his way on his way home and using the sun to guide his way back had motivated a duet in which the professional dancer represents the "gentle warmth of the sun around Kikuchi as they perform as one," the choreographer stated.

"This occurred in the afternoon and I had a intuition that the sunlight should be shining from the west. So, if I turned toward 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 sun was a good helper to me. The sun could be a good representation. So the narrative emerged from there."

Blindness Provides Distinct Connection with Dance

Healey, an scholar of disability research at the Toronto university, said: "Blindness and being blind fosters a dynamic relationship with movement in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s bond with their physical self and dance."

In working with the performers, the artist was attempting to convey what "they’re experiencing in their body, something that’s just not available through looking," she noted. "I talk with the dancers to get a understanding of how they feel in their body, where their breath is, what they’re thinking, how their physical form are feeling.

"In collaboration with the dance creators [and] attire, stage lights, stage design and music creators, the perceptions and innovation of blindness are constantly visible as we, blind and seeing people, build a relationship through our love of dance and dance. It is this artistry and love that I try to integrate into the detailed narration. It is a cooperation of the senses led by blindness."

She continued: "Even though the sight of the performance, the beautiful spectacle, is there facing the viewers, there is much that they overlook or appreciating, and it is visual impairment that is inviting sighted and visually impaired audience members alike into the unseen. What I hope is that, when viewers leave, they sense ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the being, and hearing the perceptions of, blindness in innovative and dynamic ways."

Composer The Composer on Sound Descriptions

Richter, whose works have gathered more than billions of streams, stated the spoken narration formed a rapport between visual impairment and sight "through a soundscape, giving voice to that which is not always visible". He added: "It is not merely a description of a performance. It is the performance itself."

World Ballet Day Partners

The company's worldwide associates for International Ballet Day comprise the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The companies will furthermore supply access to behind-the-scenes footage, rehearsals and newly commissioned productions – broadcast in real-time via online channels.