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The Royal Ballet traditionally offered audio devices with descriptive narration so that sightless audience members could understand the movement on stage. Now, through a revolutionary performance, the whole audience will hear such descriptions within a production that investigates how lack of sight can redefine our responses to experience, music and storytelling.

Blind Artist Collaborates with Renowned Dance Creators

The blind artist, a blind artist, is partnering with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, among other dance creators, and musician Max Richter in creating a fresh Royal Ballet work that will launch on November 12th, International Ballet Day, as announced recently.

In her art, the artist is driven by a desire to illustrate how blindness and disability can provide an unique type of understanding for everyone. Her rich spoken descriptions, integrated with the score, forms the center of the performance on stage.

"Creating world-class dance and musical theater for each person" is a mission statement of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's leader, the troupe is focusing on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and patrons to encounter dance in transformative fresh approaches," he explained.

Multiple Choreographers Work on New Production

The new work is being created by Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, every one working with the blind artist.

Robert Binet, the director of this work, said: "International Ballet Day was founded on the concept of inclusion. After a ten years, we're pushing that notion more to consider how challenged viewpoints can mold our creative medium, and welcome viewers of all abilities and histories to encounter ballet in innovative methods."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, the curator recognized that sighted people who had experienced the artist's audio narration believed it helped them understand ballet, which can appear so abstract.

Touching Collaboration Of Expert and Amateur Dancers

In one performance, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will perform alongside Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been blind since birth and who had previously believed that dance was "mostly for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has understood that it actually "involves a lot of feeling and emotions" and activates perceptions, "visual and non-visual".

The dancer's personal story of earlier losing his way on his way home and depending on the sunlight to direct his way back had motivated a dance piece in which the professional dancer becomes the "soothing presence of the sunlight around Kikuchi as they dance in unison," Malcomson stated.

"It was during the day and I had a sense that the sunlight should be beaming from the west. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I couldn't see the sunlight itself, I could sense the temperature … So I continued moving to the west …. It directed me home. The sun was a excellent guide to me. The sun could be a good metaphor. So the narrative developed from there."

Visual Impairment Presents Unique Relationship with Dance

Healey, an scholar of disability studies at the Toronto university, said: "Blindness and being blind encourages a active relationship with motion in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s relationship with their body and movement."

In working with the performers, the artist was seeking to express what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not available through sight," she explained. "I converse with the performers to get a understanding of how they are in their body, where their respiration is, what they’re thinking, how their body are feeling.

"Working together with the dance creators [and] attire, illumination, set and audio designers, the perceptions and innovation of blindness are constantly visible as we, blind and sighted individuals, establish a connection through our love of motion and performance. It is this innovation and love that I strive to blend into the immersive descriptive audio. It is a partnership of the faculties led by visual impairment."

The artist added: "While the vision of the dance, the gorgeous display, is there facing the patrons, there is much that they overlook or valuing, and it is blindness that is encouraging seeing and blind viewers alike into the unseen. What I hope is that, when viewers depart, they experience ballet in a distinct way, and they’re also experiencing the being, and listening to the perceptions of, visual impairment in new and active ways."

Composer Max Richter on Sound Narration

The composer, whose recordings have gathered more than 3.5bn streams, stated the descriptive commentary created a relationship between visual impairment and sight "via a musical landscape, offering narration to that which remains unseen". He added: "This isn't simply a explanation of a performance. It is performance."

International Ballet Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s global associates for International Ballet Day comprise the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will additionally provide availability to behind-the-scenes video, practice sessions and freshly produced works – transmitted live via online channels.