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The Royal Ballet for years provided audio devices with spoken commentary so that sightless viewers could understand the movement on stage. Now, in a innovative new work, the entire gathering will experience such narration within a piece that explores how blindness can transform our responses to feeling, music and storytelling.

Visually Impaired Artist Partners with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired creator, is partnering with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, together with other choreographers, and composer Max Richter in creating a recent ballet company commission that will launch on 12 November, World Ballet Day, as revealed on Thursday.

Within her creative practice, the artist is driven by a wish to illustrate how blindness and disability can provide an alternative form of perception for all people. Her detailed audio narration, integrated with the music, creates the center of the performance on stage.

"Making exceptional dance and musical theater for everyone" is a mission statement of the Royal Opera House. Under the director, the Royal Ballet's director, the organization is concentrating on "radical accessibility – inviting creators and viewers to encounter dance in life-changing fresh approaches," he stated.

Several Choreographers Work on Fresh Work

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

Robert Binet, the director of this production, said: "International Ballet Day was created on the concept of accessibility. After a decade, we're pushing that notion more to explore how disabled outlooks can shape our performance style, and encourage viewers of every capability and backgrounds to discover ballet in fresh approaches."

Having worked with the artist in Canada and Australian locations, he realized that individuals who can see who had experienced Healey’s audio narration felt it helped them comprehend ballet, which can appear so unclear.

Touching Partnership Of Professional and Amateur Performers

In one duet, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will partner Takashi Kikuchi, an amateur dancer who has been blind since birth and who had previously believed that dance was "primarily for those who can see". But Kikuchi has understood that it actually "includes a lot of sensation and emotions" and taps into senses, "sight-based and non-visual".

Kikuchi’s individual experience of once becoming disoriented on his way home and relying on the sunlight to orient his way back had influenced a performance in which the professional dancer embodies the "warm breath of the sunlight around Kikuchi as they move together," the choreographer said.

"This occurred during the day and I had a feeling that the sun should be beaming from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunlight, even though I didn't perceive the light itself, I could feel the heat … So I continued moving to the west …. It led me home. The sun was a great guide to me. The sun could be a meaningful symbol. So the story emerged from there."

Blindness Offers Special Relationship with Dance

Healey, an scholar of disability research at the Toronto university, commented: "Blindness and being blind invites a dynamic connection with dance in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s bond with their body and motion."

In working with the dancers, she was attempting to convey what "they perceive in their body, something that’s just not available through vision," she explained. "I converse with the performers to get a understanding of how they’re feeling in their body, where their respiration is, what they think, how their body are feeling.

"Partnering with the dance creators [and] attire, lighting, stage design and sound designers, the perceptions and artistry of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing persons, establish a relationship through our love of movement and dance. It is this artistry and love that I strive to blend into the spoken commentary. It is a collaboration of the faculties directed by visual impairment."

She noted: "Even though the view of the ballet, the gorgeous spectacle, is present facing the viewers, there is so much that they’re not accessing or valuing, and it is blindness that is welcoming sighted and blind viewers equally into the invisible. What I hope is that, when viewers exit, they feel dance in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the being, and listening to the viewpoints of, blindness in innovative and dynamic ways."

Musician The Composer on Sound Narration

The composer, whose compositions have gathered more than 3.5bn digital listens, stated the spoken narration created 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 performance."

International Dance Day Partners

The Royal Ballet’s international associates for World Ballet Day feature the Canadian ballet company and the Australian Ballet. The organizations will also provide access to exclusive material, practice sessions and freshly produced pieces – transmitted live via online channels.