Sensory Beyond Sight

A soft spotlight follows a lone figure moving slowly, tentatively, around a darkened space. Suddenly, the dancer turns and propels himself forward in a burst of energy toward a sound emanating from a corner of the room. As more sounds occur, the dancer perceives and interprets the environment, physical gestures triggered from audio prompts, creating choreography from spatialized sound.

The creative and performing arts have often been effective in communicating the range of challenges faced by visually impaired individuals, but the arts have not been used as a tool to facilitate and drive research. This project spotlights the potential of creative collaborations across a range of technologies and disciplines, amplifying the arts and engaging the too often underserved visually impaired community. We will explore ways our individual areas of expertise can work together, across the senses, to develop novel ways of creative, inclusive production, prioritizing audio and embodied movement, and lay the groundwork for future inclusion of the disabled in promoting innovative research and understanding.