That is half one in all a two-part collection about accessibility within the performing arts.
Standing in a small circle, a gaggle of performers launched themselves to a smaller group of viewers members. The performers went into nice element, relating not solely their names and pronouns but additionally describing themselves and their apparel. The viewers members, together with myself, had been then led across the efficiency house and invited to the touch the minimal props and set items that might be used within the present — a dance manufacturing of quick items referred to as Solos Misplaced and Discovered, offered by the Deborah Slater Dance Theater firm. We had been even inspired to put fingers on the physique of a dancer as they demonstrated a very troublesome to elucidate acrobatic transfer.
This pre-show “haptic tour” for blind and low-vision (BLV) patrons got here courtesy of Jess Curtis’ Gravity, a fellow dance firm trialing an audio description service within the Bay Space. After the tour, we acquired small battery-powered headsets via which we’d obtain dwell commentary from an audio describer, Stephanie Hewitt, whose muffle-mic’d voice murmured straight into our ears because the efficiency unfolded in entrance of us.
This was my first expertise with an audio-described efficiency, which passed off in 2019 contained in the remnants of an outdated fireplace station on the San Francisco waterfront. At that time the service was nonetheless being developed by Gravity, with funding for this and different trial performances being underwritten by a grant from the Rainin and Haas Foundations. The aim of the grant was to make it doable to supply the service to smaller firms that might in any other case discover the fee prohibitive, and to introduce a performance-hungry demographic of blind and low-vision patrons to the work of a few of the Bay Space’s extra experimental artists.
In line with the American Basis for the Blind, there are over 50 million individuals with imaginative and prescient impairments in america, 340,000 of whom are totally blind. Of these 50 million, over 3.8 million report problem seeing even when sporting glasses. And but, regardless of audio description being provided recurrently as a service in film theaters and, extra not too long ago, by streaming networks, it’s a follow that has but to develop into widespread in dwell efficiency venues. There are a couple of regional organizations serving their native communities, and a pair, such because the well-established Audio Description Associates in Maryland, that supply their work farther afield, however as a regular follow in dwell productions, audio description and haptic or “contact” excursions have but to catch on throughout the US theater business.
For Jess Curtis, it took collaborating with Claire Cunningham, a Scottish dancer and choreographer born with osteoporosis, on their acclaimed 2016 duet The Manner You Look (at me) Tonight, to be launched to the world of audio description. This entry follow, Curtis famous in February 2024, is comparatively widespread within the UK, the place Cunningham was based mostly — however a lot much less so within the US and in Berlin, the place he cut up his time. Working with incapacity activist artists within the UK reminiscent of Maria Oshodi of Extant, and dance audio describer Emma-Jane McHenry, Curtis and Cunningham arrived at an audio description of their present that felt genuine to the piece. Curtis bought a couple of wi-fi headsets to supply to visually impaired viewers members, via which they acquired a pre-recorded description, setting the stage, so to talk, for future forays within the follow.
“I seemed across the Bay Space and round Berlin and noticed that nearly nobody was doing audio description,” Curtis defined. “And since the gear was sitting in a field able to go on tour, I believed we may strive providing this. … I believe the primary 12 months [2018] we did like three or 4 audio descriptions in Berlin and three or 4 check audio descriptions in San Francisco at Z House and at CounterPulse and…from there [it] took off.”
Calling the venture Gravity Entry, and folding it into his inventive firm, Curtis, with a small core of entry consultants, audio descriptors and a part-time administrator, started slowly scaling up an artist-led audio description service geared deliberately in direction of smaller and unbiased efficiency firms at reasonably priced, sliding scale charges. The premise of the venture is straightforward: normalize and assist larger accessibility practices within the performing arts, significantly within the space of audio description. Create alternatives for performers and consultants of numerous skills and entry wants. And design a viable blueprint for artists and organizations searching for to do that work of their communities nationwide.
Tiffany Taylor, a queer, disabled performer and entry advisor, was one of many patrons who availed themselves of that early foray into audio description at The Manner You Look (at me) Tonight — her first encounter with the follow. Even together with her BA in theater from Adrian School in Michigan, Taylor was accustomed to being sidelined as an artist and viewers member attributable to her blindness.
“I used to be the one bodily disabled pupil in the whole program, and the employees had by no means labored with college students with disabilities earlier than,” she says. “I used to be excluded from dance and stagecraft lessons due to ableist beliefs. I used to be additionally not forged in very many productions due to this.”
However at The Manner You Look (at me) Tonight, Taylor not solely felt absolutely included — she felt impressed to renew her efficiency follow in ways in which had beforehand been denied her.
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“I had by no means seen an accessible efficiency or disabled performers earlier than seeing The Manner You Look (at me) Tonight with Jess and Claire,” she says. “That basically was the place to begin of me taking contact improvisation lessons from Jess and others. This additionally was what began my working with Gravity.”
Now, as one in all Gravity Entry’ core consultants and a board member, Taylor is ready to provide significant critique and recommendations to Gravity’s group of audio describers earlier than and after performances (relying on the present and the contracted service). She additionally affords her experience and lived expertise extra broadly as an accessibility guide with Gravity, working with firms on their advertising supplies and web sites to make sure that they’re accessible to the visually impaired, and on methods for group outreach and engagement with visually impaired patrons. Partly, she notes, so “I’m not the one one answerable for bringing disabled audiences.”
Rachael Dichter — who, with Gabriele Christian, was not too long ago appointed Interim Inventive Director of Gravity — has been a part of the audio description group since its inception. A dancer and Curtis’ life companion, she’s labored off-and-on with Gravity since 2010, and commenced her journey with audio description as quickly as Curtis started trialing it. Over time she’s described quite a few dance and theater performances, studying, she says, extra with every manufacturing. Her ballet background makes her a pure match as the first describer for Smuin Ballet, and she or he not too long ago described a efficiency by Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo (“the world’s foremost gender-skewering comedian ballet firm”), offered by Cal Performances in Berkeley.
Whereas she principally avoids utilizing technical dance vocabulary for all however essentially the most dance-savvy patrons, describing these performances offers her loads of alternative to play with sensorial imagery. She’ll typically sit down with the director beforehand to find out if there are any “juicy, visceral photos that they’ve been working with,” to include into her descriptions.
From partnering with native organizations reminiscent of LightHouse for the Blind, Gravity has developed long-standing skilled and private connections to the communities they serve. As early as 2016, Gravity was inviting LightHouse to attend its exhibits that included audio description, beginning with The Manner You Look (at me) Tonight. Extra not too long ago, Maia Scott, one in all LightHouse’s program coordinators, has labored intently with the corporate on the programming aspect, organizing a panel dialogue on entry practices and a workshop on “gentle portray” with blind visible artist Gerald Pirner in 2023.
Native theater firms have additionally leaned into fostering nearer relationships with LightHouse and different organizations that serve the blind and low-vision group. The Berkeley-based Shotgun Gamers, amongst Gravity Entry’ early adopters, now provide no less than one audio-described efficiency for every of their mainstage exhibits. In line with Shotgun’s managing director Liz Lisle, they’ve been getting enter from a Blind & Low Imaginative and prescient advisory group, which affords recommendations on points of the Shotgun expertise general reminiscent of wayfinding and the foyer expertise. In addition they provide discounted passes to visually impaired patrons to be able to maintain them as viewers members all through the season.
For Scott, the vitality and expectations round entry in what she phrases the “post-ADA” generations is a welcome sea change. However as a result of accessibility measures reminiscent of audio description are nonetheless not universally out there, she observes that “it’s taking lots of work and reconditioning expectations for the blind and low-vision group to search for accessible programming within the visible arts, be it museums, bodily theater or dance.” To spend cash on a service that’s then not utilized when it’s provided generally is a barrier to a corporation offering it. However blind and low-vision communities can, and do, rally round organizations making the trouble, as Shotgun’s rising BLV audiences show. One other technique to instill entry practices, Scott shares, is “from the inspiration up”: educating college students, particularly within the arts, about “incapacity entry and inclusion for his or her patrons and audiences,” to be able to increase consciousness and make such practices part of the usual working procedures within the arts outdoors the classroom.
In the meantime, Gravity Entry continues to develop, increasing its attain past the Bay Space and changing into a nationwide chief within the still-emergent audio description motion. Gravity’s in-demand standing is underscored by its potential to proceed providing its providers regardless of the sudden passing of its founder in March of this 12 months.
Gravity Entry program director Michael Whitson affirms that the corporate is “structurally and financially sound,” including that “Jess had been diligent within the final 2 years to domesticate new and efficient staffing.” Thus far, Whitson estimates, the corporate has described over 220 particular person performances for an estimated 880 patrons since 2019. They’re increasing their present cohort of audio describers from six to eight, persevering with to audit and educate firms in web site and advertising accessibility, and internet hosting an occasion calendar of upcoming performances across the Bay Space which are providing entry measures reminiscent of audio description, ASL interpretation and relaxed performances for people who expertise sensory sensitivities or really feel discomfort with theater viewers “expectations” like remaining in your seat or not vocalizing throughout performances. Gravity Entry has additionally been prepared to journey, working with organizations such because the Oregon Shakespeare Pageant, Rosy Simas Danse in Minnesota and Nel Shelby Productions in New York. And throughout the US, firms dedicated to bringing audio description to their communities are rising, such because the not too long ago established Audio Description Studying Community (ADLN) in Philadelphia and the Central Florida Audio Description Initiative (CFADI).
One last piece that Curtis emphasised in our dialog is the significance of not treating audio description or different entry practices as simply mechanisms for viewers constructing, however as instruments of alternative for artists and directors of numerous skills as effectively.
“The extra numerous your employees is, the extra clear entry wants will develop into,” he asserted. “There are blind actors. There are blind dancers. There are deaf actors and dancers. … Producing performs with deaf characters after which hiring deaf actors to do them … or blind actors and blind characters, I believe can also be an necessary factor. … Inclusion is not only for the viewers. It’s actually throughout — in theater and within the workplaces and backstage as effectively.”
Writer’s Word: I started engaged on this piece in February 2024 and was lucky sufficient to interview Curtis two weeks earlier than he unexpectedly handed away on March 11. I had the pleasure of interviewing him a number of occasions through the years about this venture because it developed, and am each honored to have gotten the prospect to take action one final time, and grateful to the opposite interviewees of this piece for his or her well timed contributions.
