The art of audio description can make dance a moving experience for everyone | Caroline Butterwick

Six dancers glide across the stage at the Lowry in Salford. As a visually impaired person, I would expect to feel lost watching dance, but I know how they link their arms and roll their shoulders, how the light catches their sepia costumes. This is Lived Fiction, an inclusive contemporary dance work by Stopgap, with audio description as a central part of the performance.

I love audio-described theater, but wasn’t sure how it would work for dance, which seems so inherently visual to me.

Lily Norton, the show’s entrance artist and co-writer, is on stage the entire time. Unlike traditional audio description, I don’t have to fiddle with the volume on a headset because Norton delivers this to the entire audience.

Director and co-writer Lucy Bennett tells me how Stopgap wanted to work this way after realizing the power of creative access in her online videos during the pandemic.

“In previous productions we had just ‘tagged’ the access,” says Bennett. “There were disabled role models on stage, there were people talking about the business who were disabled, but the access wasn’t embedded. So how are people with disabilities going to go to the theater, experience our work and realize that this is something they are passionate about? It’s almost like we were doing all these things, but performing in front of a group of people without disabilities.”

I nod as Bennett explains that access is ‘tagged’. Often audio-described performances take place just a day or two into production, limiting when I can watch a show.

Bennett talks about the process of creating Lived Fiction’s audio description, which was written in collaboration with the company. “We started by describing the movement and how the dancers felt moved, and what they heard, saw and felt. Lily was in the studio, soaking in everyone’s descriptions. They wrote things down and we tried things out. If the choreography was incredibly poetic, we had to make the audio description poetic.”

Norton’s perspective comes through very clearly. They are a character, their voice guiding the audience through the movements of each dancer – the arms bent, the wheels sliding, but also a sense of story. They sometimes share how they’re feeling, and it helps build a connection between the audience and what’s happening on stage, breaking down the separation. My sighted husband says it helps him appreciate the meaning behind the choreography and follow the thread of what we are watching.

The entry is embedded in other ways, from Ben Glover’s creative subtitles to the relaxed atmosphere. Each dancer’s costume makes noises with zippers or jingling keys, which helps me recognize who is performing. “Dougie Evans’ musical composition often captures exactly what the dancers are doing, movement-wise,” Bennett adds.

At the start of the performance we are told that not everything may be on our frequency, but they hope that we will each find our own view of the work. There are targeted points where Norton doesn’t describe, but I don’t feel lost. The picture they have already painted blends with the music, and I let myself absorb the moment, without worrying about the complexity of movement.

I’m surprised that the description isn’t just a literal explanation of each movement – ​​90 minutes of that would be exhausting – but is instead about the emotional resonance. When dancers Emily Lue-Fong and Nadenh Poan duet, Norton describes the way their bodies roll together, skin-to-skin, their eyes meeting, how one “glides over the other like water.” I feel the tenderness of the dance, even though I don’t know every movement that takes place. The emotional weight is more important.

Now that the performance is over, I feel like I’ve experienced something with everyone here. For the first time I got a look at dance.