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This prestigious ballet company has long made available audio devices with spoken commentary so that blind viewers could track the performance on stage. Currently, through a innovative production, the entire gathering will listen to such narration within a production that explores how lack of sight can transform our responses to sensation, audio and dramatic expression.

Blind Artist Works with Renowned Dance Creators

Devon Healey, a visually impaired creator, is working with renowned choreographer Wayne McGregor, among other choreographers, and musician the celebrated composer in developing a fresh Royal Ballet commission that will premiere on 12 November, International Ballet Day, as announced on Thursday.

Within her creative practice, the artist is guided by a wish to demonstrate how blindness and disability can provide an alternative type of awareness for each individual. Her rich spoken descriptions, blended with the score, creates the core of the show on stage.

"Producing exceptional ballet and opera for all" is a motto of the Royal Opera House. Under Kevin O’Hare, the company's director, the organization is zeroing in on "total access – inviting artists and viewers to discover dance in life-changing innovative methods," he said.

Various Choreographers Work on New Performance

The fresh production is being created by choreographer Tiler Peck, Bim Malcomson, and Rebecca Myles Stewart, as well as Wayne McGregor, each collaborating with Healey.

The curator, the curator of this commission, commented: "International Ballet Day was established on the concept of accessibility. Following a ten years, we're expanding that idea deeper to explore how impaired outlooks can shape our art form, and invite patrons of all abilities and histories to experience ballet in new ways."

After collaborating with Healey in Canada and Australian locations, the curator recognized that sighted people who had encountered Healey’s descriptive audio believed it aided them understand dance, which can seem so unclear.

Touching Collaboration Between Expert and Amateur Dancers

In one dance piece, the Royal Ballet performer Leo Dixon will dance with Takashi Kikuchi, an non-professional performer who has been blind from birth and who had always thought that ballet was "primarily for sighted people". But Kikuchi has discovered that it truly "involves a lot of sensation and sentiments" and engages perceptions, "sight-based and other sensory".

The dancer's individual experience of once becoming disoriented on his way home and relying on the sunlight to guide his way back had motivated a performance in which the professional dancer becomes the "soothing presence of the sunlight around his partner as they perform as one," Malcomson said.

"This occurred mid-afternoon and I had a feeling that the sun should be radiating from the western sky. So, if I turned toward the sunshine, even though I wouldn’t see the sunlight itself, I could perceive the warmth … So I persisted in walking to the western direction …. It directed me home. The sun was a great helper to me. The sun could be a powerful metaphor. So the narrative developed from there."

Visual Impairment Provides Special Connection with Motion

Healey, an scholar of disability studies at the University of Toronto, commented: "Blindness and being blind fosters a active connection with motion in a way that is comparable to a professional dancer’s bond with their physical self and dance."

In working with the dancers, the artist was striving to convey what "they’re experiencing in their physical being, something that’s just not perceivable through sight," she said. "I converse with the dancers to get a feeling of how they feel in their physical self, where their breath is, what they consider, how their body are sensing.

"In collaboration with the dance creators [and] clothing, illumination, stage design and sound artists, the perceptions and artistry of blindness are constantly visible as we, visually impaired and seeing people, develop a connection through our affection of motion and performance. It is this artistry and passion that I try to integrate into the spoken commentary. It is a partnership of the faculties directed by visual impairment."

The artist added: "While the view of the performance, the beautiful visual feast, is available in front of the viewers, there is much that they overlook or understanding, and it is visual impairment that is inviting sighted and blind viewers equally into the hidden. What I desire is that, when patrons leave, they experience performance in a distinct way, and they’re also feeling the presence, and hearing the perceptions of, visual impairment in innovative and dynamic ways."

Musician Max Richter on Audio Descriptions

Richter, whose recordings have gathered more than 3.5bn digital listens, commented the spoken narration created a connection between visual impairment and sight "through a soundscape, providing expression to that which is not always visible". He continued: "This isn't just a narration of a performance. This is the art."

International Ballet Event Partners

The company's international collaborators for World Ballet Day comprise the Canadian ballet company and the Australian dance troupe. The organizations will also offer access to exclusive video, preparations and freshly produced works – transmitted in real-time via the event website.