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The Royal Ballet has long made available headphones with spoken commentary so that sightless audience members could track the movement on stage. Now, through a revolutionary new work, the entire crowd will experience such descriptions within a production that explores how lack of sight can redefine our perceptions to sensation, audio and storytelling.

Blind Artist Partners with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a blind creator, is partnering with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and composer Max Richter in creating a recent Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as revealed this week.

Through her work, the artist is guided by a desire to demonstrate how blindness and physical challenge can present an alternative type of understanding for everyone. Her “immersive descriptive audio”, woven with the composition, forms the heart of the show on stage.

"Producing top-tier ballet and musical theater for all" is a motto of the the organization. Under Kevin O’Hare, the Royal Ballet's director, the troupe is concentrating on "complete inclusion – welcoming artists and viewers to experience ballet in transformative new ways," he stated.

Various Dance Creators Partner on New Work

The fresh production is being choreographed by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, every one working with Healey.

The curator, the curator of this work, commented: "World Ballet Day was established on the idea of access. After a decade, we're extending that concept more to examine how impaired viewpoints can influence our creative medium, and welcome viewers of all abilities and experiences to discover ballet in new ways."

Following partnerships with Healey in Canada and Australia, the curator recognized that individuals who can see who had experienced Healey’s spoken descriptions found it assisted them understand dance, which can seem so abstract.

Touching Partnership Between Professional and Non-Professional Performers

In a particular dance piece, the company's performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been visually impaired from birth and who had long assumed that ballet was "primarily for individuals with vision". But Kikuchi has discovered that it actually "involves a lot of sensation and sentiments" and engages senses, "visual and other sensory".

Kikuchi’s unique narrative of once getting lost on his way home and depending on the sunlight to orient his way back had inspired a performance in which Dixon embodies the "soothing presence of the sun around his partner as they perform as one," the choreographer explained.

"This occurred during the day and I had a intuition that the sunlight should be beaming from the west. So, if I faced the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could sense the temperature … So I continued moving to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sun was a excellent assistant to me. The sunlight could be a meaningful symbol. So the tale originated from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Unique Connection with Movement

Healey, an academic of disability research at the University of Toronto, said: "Blindness and lacking sight fosters a active connection with dance in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s connection with their physical self and dance."

In working with the dancers, she was striving to convey what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not accessible through vision," she noted. "I speak with the dancers to get a feeling of how they feel in their body, where their breathing is, what they think, how their physical form are feeling.

"In collaboration with the choreographers [and] attire, lighting, set and sound designers, the viewpoints and innovation of blindness are ever present as we, visually impaired and sighted people, build a relationship through our love of motion and dance. It is this artistry and love that I try to integrate into the detailed narration. It is a cooperation of the perceptions guided by visual impairment."

She added: "Although the sight of the performance, the beautiful visual feast, is present before the audience, there is so much that they overlook or understanding, and it is blindness that is inviting seeing and visually impaired audience members alike into the invisible. What I hope is that, when patrons exit, they experience ballet in a different way, and they’re also sensing the presence, and hearing the understandings of, visual impairment in innovative and dynamic ways."

Composer The Composer on Audio Narration

The composer, whose recordings have amassed more than 3.5bn digital listens, said the descriptive commentary formed a rapport between visual impairment and sight "by means of a soundscape, offering narration to that which does not always appear". He noted: "This isn't merely a explanation of a show. This is performance."

International Ballet Event Collaborators

The Royal Ballet’s global collaborators for World Ballet Day feature the National Ballet of Canada and the Australian Ballet. The troupes will additionally supply availability to backstage video, rehearsals and recently created works – streamed live via their official platform.