Audio description as access for blind and low vision audience members to enjoy dance is a field ripe with experimentation. Host Lisa Niedermeyer offers examples of audio description approaches from Pillow performances, while Thomas Reid and Cheryl Green, audio describers who also co-host a podcast called POD ACCESS for disabled creators, contribute their perspectives.
Links to disability artistry projects mentioned in this podcast:
POD Access by Thomas Reid and Cheryl Green
Reid My Mind Radio hosted by Thomas Reid
Social Audio Description Collective
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival with content from the Pillow archives. I'm Norton Owen the Pillow’s Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to kick off this episode on the topic of Audio Description and how it can prove access to dance performances for Blind and Low Vision audience members. Our host Lisa Niedermeyer, a creative technologist and producer for PillowVoices, is joined by two audio description creators, Thomas Reid and Cheryl Greene, who also co-host a podcast for disabled podcasters entitled “POD ACCESS.”
Lisa Niedermeyer: Hello. Hello, my name is Lisa Niedermeyer. I am a white non-disabled woman with glasses and buzzed, uh, blondish hair, wearing over the ear headphones with reflective serpent designs. I just described a little bit about what I look and my relationship to disability, you will hear our guests today do the same as part of accessibility best practice. Let's start with a bit of a story… it was the summer of 2018 and I drove all the way from New York City to the Berkshires to witness in person an incredible first for Jacob's Pillow. It was the first time that audio description was being presented as part of a live dance performance, and at the time I was a producing director for Kinetic Light, an incredible disability arts ensemble working dance, design, and technology and who produces audio description for their live performances and dance films.
So I was, I was in it, right? I wanted to see who was innovating around this as well. The performance was called Paramodernities, and I was specifically excited to see Georgina Kleege perform. Georgina is just an incredible voice on the topic of all of the inventive ways that Blind people like herself experience art. She's written books on the topic and has training as a dancer. We will get to hear an excerpt of Georgina's performance together today.
We will also hear excerpts from two other dance performances at Jacob's Pillow, as well as hear from the Blind and low vision choreographers that made the work, Kayla Hamilton and Christopher Unpezverde Núñez.
As a total bonus and delight, I have invited two of my favorite podcasters, Audio Describers Thomas Reid and Cheryl Green, to share their perspective of the field of audio description broadly, and to get real about what is at stake when the invitation of access artistry is offered to blind dance audiences.
Let's jump in.
Thomas Reid: So yeah, my name is Thomas Reid. I'm a brown-skinned Black man with a smooth shaving bald head, full neat salt and pepper beard, and wearing dark shades and uh, a t-shirt. I'm in my vocal booth in my home in the Poconos. Even though this is not a presentation, but I'm still legally obligated to let you know that that is only 90 minutes from the place that I always call home. And that's the Bronx, New York. It's a legal obligation, trust me. I host and produce a podcast called “Read My Mind Radio,” where I feature compelling people impacted by all degrees of blindness and disability in general. And occasionally I share some of my own experiences as a man adjusting to becoming blind as an adult.
I produce an annual season dedicated to moving beyond the mainstream audio description conversation in order to discuss the greater implications that the artform has on the community. I call it “Flipping the Script on Audio Description.” I'm also an audio description narrator, working independently and as a member of the Social Audio Description Collective right alongside Cheryl and some other great people.
Access always has to take the content into account in order for it to be equitable, 'cause I believe in equitable access.
Cheryl Green: My name is Cheryl Green. I use she/her pronouns. I identify as disabled. I have invisible disabilities and chronic illness, but I'm not blind. I am a white Ashkenazi Jewish woman with olive skin, curly brown hair, silver and white cat eye glasses, and I've got a black and white, uh, stripey shirt today. I write, narrate audio, edit and produce audio description, often with you, Thomas, for independent documentaries, museum exhibitions and dance.
I consider myself an access artist, which is a kind of a concept in a term a lot of people use, but I got first from the Curiosity Paradox. So in addition to audio description, I'm also a captioner, subtitler and transcriber for films and podcasts. And I also consult with filmmakers on shooting and editing in ways that help them budget for access. And think creatively about how accessibility can be added to their works more seamlessly. Whether I'm making the access or consulting, I'm never aiming just for compliance. I wanna make the accessibility features artistic and immersive, match the vision and the creativity of the original piece I'm essentially translating, and I think access can be considered part of the art.
Lisa Niedermeyer: In this first excerpt from The Pillow Archives, we will hear Georgina Kleege in the 2018 performance of Netta Yerushalmy’s Paramodernities. While an audio description track was created for this performance, this is not what we will be listening to. This excerpt is Kleege speaking live from the stage as she's dancing with her long cane, sharing in monologue form, her experience in curating describers that can offer her different interpretations of what they perceive when watching dance. Following the performance excerpt, we will hear comments from Cheryl Green about training in audio description for dance.
Georgina Kleege: She's spinning. He's spinning. They join hands and walk forward, now back. She's leading. Now he's leading. Passé fouetté, foot flaps, like shaking the mud off their shoes. Looks like they're getting ready to do something. No, now they're backing off. She leans back against him as if she's fainting or pretending to faint. She slithers snakily. She looks like a koala bear, hugging a bigger bear. Arabesque penché. As you've heard already, different bodies require and create new modes of representation. Different bodies, disabled bodies, brown bodies, tall bodies, queer bodies, aging bodies require and create reframing, recasting, reassembly of movement, as Magda and Gerald are performing tonight. This opens up the possibility of new audiences for dance. Who in turn require and create new modes of reception and interpretation. On the rare occasion when a blind person is considered as an audience for dance, she might be able to request the accommodation of audio description. Where some sighted person creates a verbal rendering of the action on stage and transmits it to the blind person via an audio headset. The results typically do little more than a dry recital of steps and a tracking of the dancer's movement around the space. There is rarely any attempt at ekphrasis or a poetic translation of the visual experience into words.
What if we borrowed the strategy from the modernist experiments in fiction of the early 20th century by Woolf, Joyce, Faulkner, and abandoned the pretense of a singular omnipotent narrator in favor of a multiplicity of voices describing a dance? As an experiment, I asked a number of people to watch a video of the famous pas de deux performed by Arthur Mitchell and Diana Adams in 1960 and describe it to me. And while in typical audio description, the only qualifications required to describe to a blind person is eyesight, I chose describers who had some relevant expertise.
So as some of my describers were dancers, some of them were related to dancers. There was a professional audio describer, a composer, a musician, a writer, a painter, an engineer, a political activist, scholars of various kinds. There were people who had experienced polio and were familiar with rehabilitative exercises.
There were wheelchair users who knew the partnering required for lifts and transfers, and here's more of what they told me: “He is on his knees. He arches back to haul her up onto her point. Someone says she eclipses his head with her leg. And someone else says she kicks at his head, but he gets away [audience laughs]. And everyone says he lifts her up and she falls into splits. He lifts her up and she falls into splits. He lifts her up and she falls into splits.
His solo is jazzy, Broadway. A writer calls her solo crisp to the point of brittleness, and a dancer says everything she does is eye tingly [audience laughs]. They make an arbor with their arms. He is less of a prop and more of a crutch. He guides her foot back behind her and up. Showing her what to do. Her hand is on his neck, but is she caressing him or pushing him down?
And now they're leaving. There they go.”
What I get from all this description has less to do with a mental image and certainly not a story. It's more a sequence of states of being. I get also a range of emotions, attempts at interpretation, fits, and starts of empathy. I gain understanding from what certain people ignore and what other people, how other people use metaphors to describe what they see. All this piles up in me to create something, an imperfect sense of the dance.
Cheryl Green: I really enjoy working with you and working independently and with Social Audio Description Collective because we're outside the mainstream industry and I think the mainstream industry has tended to be really focused on just the literal visuals, you know, list out the literal visuals of what's on, what's happening on stage or screen. And that that is supposed to, make it accessible. But I think sometimes, it can get so literal that there's no story. Why are the people doing the things that they're doing? I hear a list of what they're doing, but why? One line that I really enjoyed from Georgina who said ‘What I get from all this description is less to do with a mental image and certainly not a story. It's more a sequence of states of being.’
In terms of doing audio description, I started in dance with Kinetic Light, did a few pieces with them, and only after I'd done several did I take training specific in describing for dance. I took a class by Krishna Washburn, who's a blind dancer and choreographer. She trains blind people in ballet technique and anatomy, physiology, and also trains audio describers from, from a blind-centered perspective. And yes, we talk choreography and vocabulary, but it's story, story, story. Begins with story, ends with story. You know, what's the user experience? Can you come home and memorize this list of steps? They did this, they did that, they did this, they did that. Or do you want a story that you can hang on to that you can build out in your head? And my writing has changed a lot since Krishna's training. And her emphasis on story.
Lisa Niedermeyer: In this next excerpt we hear Pillow curator Melanie George in conversation with choreographer Kayla Hamilton after a 2018 showing of Nearly Sighted/ unearthing the dark. In this work, multiple audio describers were integrated on stage in the live performance and a range of styles of description were embodied. We’ll also hear from dancer and audio describer Nicole McClam.
Melanie George: So I'm really fascinated with the, the different kinds of description, of audio description that happened in the work and the sort of different lenses, um, that one can put on movement. I know that that is something that's a part of accessibility services, but I'm curious how did it find its way into the work? And maybe if we could collectively sort of name those different sort of ways of, of describing as well.
Kayla Hamilton: It started when I was going to museums, like other spaces or watching Netflix and listening to the AD or going to museums and having experiences with, uh, friends versus when I go alone and listen to the AD and I started to ask myself, what's being left out? What are, what am I curious, like, what are my curiosities that are not there? Um, so there were things like naming race or naming bodies or, um, or like, I wanted to, I'm like circling my upper body. Like I wanted to get into the, the nuance of what everybody else was experiencing instead of like, it is a chair. I, I don't, I just, there was more to it that I was missing. So it, it's an attempt to bring people in, get people closer, to the movement and to me and to us, um, as people.
Melanie George: I feel like there's a little bit of, in the different ways of describing, there's also personality that seeps into those ways of describing. And in my experience with audio description, it's generally sort of personality-less [Hamiliton: Yes] You know?
Kayla Hamilton: Yes.
Nicole McClam: This is Nicole. I would say section one, where. Kayla is repeating a movement phrase over and over and we have different audio descriptions. The first one, which is a very robotic voice. That's the, where we are poking fun at the AD. Yeah. Just it's, it's a robot voice. It's very dry. It's just telling you what's happening with absolutely no seasoning whatsoever.
Melanie George: Yeah. It's like Alexa for movement, you know? [audience laughs]
Nicole McClam: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Lisa Niedermeyer: In this next performance excerpt we hear three different audio describers Kayla Hamilton, Nicole McClam and Azure D. Osborne-Lee describe the same choreography in three different ways.
Kayla Hamilton: I hope I'm starting in the right spot. Get ready to take up space. Go move, travel. Circle, circle, sequential, catch. Sit into the hip. Mm. Up. Down. I am not sure why I put this next part in the piece. Go down to the ground, go back, back, back, back, back. But don't run into anything. Look down and to the left, walk forward, but don't fall forward. Sharp, sharp, wooooo. Let that go. You can look at them, but don't look too creepy. [audience laughter] Spread it out. Bring it in. Kayla, you better work those hips, swing. Take a risk, chop jump. Bring it all in.
Nicole McClam: Pressing the arms away and high while shifting side to side [audience laughs]. Hop, slash, spinal rotation. Hop, slash, spinal rotation. Simultaneous flexion and rotation of the legs, abduction of the arms into spinal sequence. Bicep flex. Foot to spiral into the floor, backwards leaps, arms, windmill, backwards. Sternum reaches up [long pause]. Walking forward, but looking away. Big toe initiates spiral to extended balance [long pause]. Pelvic twisting, leading into small sideward steps, arm sweep into head dive, and leap forward. Gathering the space.
Azure D. Osborne-Lee: Her right toe drags as her arms push out in an orbit, a figure 8 in a cycle. She leaps forward and twists as her body pushes through the air. She opens her linen-clad knees and a quake moves up her body. Sitting into one hip, she pulls a cord. She spirals down into the ground, then runs backwards, arms wheeling. I look up, then down. A looong glance over shoulder. Back, not quite flat, her shirt mirrors the sky, a preparation, a turn [long pause]. Drumming feet drop into a squat. She twists at the waist, arms to the sun. A step and hop, turning around, pulling, pulling, pulling into herself.
Cheryl Green: Doing that experimentation, it's fun, it's playful. It demonstrates to the audience and to other dancers and other access providers that like this doesn't have to be strict. It doesn't have to be boring. It can be, the access can drive the art.
Lisa Niedermeyer: In our final archives excerpt, we hear from Christopher Unpezverde Núñez in a 2024 postshow talk about access artistry as a Blind choreographer, and then a sample from his performance titled Yo Obsolete.
Christopher Unpezverde Núñez: Access artistry, the difference between compliance, which is the Americans with Disability Act and making sure that we have access for everyone. Access Artistry is mostly created by disabled people for disabled people, so we really want to give disabled people a deep, robust, expansive, artistic experience. For example, in the case of the audio description, it's not only describing the legs, the, the physical movement, it's really telling the story of what's happening inside the dancer when they dance. What are they feeling? How are they feeling? How are they responding to the different elements on the stage? How are they telling the story with their bodies? And so we offer, a truly artistic experience to disabled people that just goes beyond the, uh, compliance, which in many cases is provided by non-disabled people as well. And so as disabled artists, we have a sense of what our community needs when they come and experience artistic events. That's what we try, but it's, it's an experiment. The audio description not only reflects what's happening externally and visually, it is also informed by everything that is happening internally, happening internally. So it's body and soul and mind all, all at the same time. That's basically the difference between this audio description, which is more access, artistry and other forms of audio description that are more in relation to compliance. And so they make everything very graphic, very external informed by visual elements only, but I, I take my risk in experimenting and doing something different.
[dreamy percussion music with spoken word poetry style text on top of the music]
Christopher Unpezverde Núñez: My name is Christopher. I love pink. Pink takes me back to a time of happiness and love for myself [music continues]. I am wearing pink boxing gloves. My dad told me to be ready to fight at all times. If I didn't wanna fight, I will take my toys to a secret place inside my mind. And hide away. My name is Christopher. I'm imagining a pink line and colorful toys around me. Broken toys. Incomplete toys. Obsolete toys [long pause - music only] [exhales thrice]. My name is Christopher. When I was seven years old, another child came to live inside my body. His name was Carlitos. Carlitos was skinny. He had brown hair and black eyes. We were two children living in the same body. Carlitos was my friend. He was vigilant. He will let me know if my dad was looking for me to take me boxing [dreamy percussion music ends].
Lisa Niedermeyer: As we conclude this episode, we zoom out from examples specific to Jacob's Pillow to the field of audio description for dance at large. We will hear from Thomas Reid as a consumer of audio description, what is at stake when blind audience members are invited to a dance performance that is marketed as having audio description.
The reality is access is not always achieved even when it is intentional. That's not a reason to pause on the experimentation. In fact, it's an opportunity to continue experimenting. I'll hand the mic over to Thomas to get real on the subject of what he hopes to get out of any art experience, as well as some practical suggestions for dance makers to workshop with folks on the blind spectrum when creating audio description for dance.
Thomas Reid: I know I'm not the only one who has, I don't wanna say a fear, but there's something there around consuming AD for like, for dance or something interpretive or whatever because I get to a point sometimes where I ask the question, is it for me?
As a Blind person, I have to be honest that when I'm listening to something that starts off with no description, well, one of the things I would do is to check, to make sure audio description is enabled. If I was told that there was audio description. But I'm, I'm feeling I, you know, it, it's like I start to feel a little lost, right? Because I don't know what's going on. And if I'm sitting there, you know, I'm probably gonna fall asleep, you know? And I don't want to, I, I, I want to be involved. I wanna be engaged.
To be in an environment that is supposed to be accessible, like it. It is just, well, am I supposed to be here?
Lisa Niedermeyer: Yea.
Thomas Reid: I thought you guys invited me here.
Lisa Niedermeyer: Yea.
Thomas Reid: I thought you invited me. If it's AD experimentation, you need Blind people. And so for me, this would be really interesting to have. A group of blind folks watch it and sort of talk about their interpretation of what was taking place. And then at the same time, you have some sighted folks who are watching and then talk about their interpretation of what's taking place, you know, from the visuals and are there overlaps, right? And it's not about a right or wrong, but it's about access. What are they getting from the visuals that we're not getting? What are the overlaps? Maybe there are some, maybe there's, they're totally different. And so it, it would be evident that the dance itself is providing some additional information that needs to be conveyed. Right?
I like the idea of customizing the access. But access artistry starts with access. Like literally right [laughs], right there. It's right there. So start with the access. Make sure it's accessible to folks. Make sure we're getting, make sure we can be in conversation with someone who is not blind, who watched this performance. Because I'll tell you, as a consumer of audio description, that's number one. That's one of the ways that I judge it, is if I'm in conversation with someone and that's where I learn about something that happened on stage that I did not have access to, then that's not a win for me. If I can be in conversation, especially with something like a dance performance where, you know, I can tell my interpretation and someone can tell me their interpretation and I can, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. That part when they did X, Y, Z, oh yeah, yeah. Da da da da, you know, or that made me feel this way, whatever. I want to be in full conversation with that. That to me is the goal for any form of art.
[podcast theme music]
Norton Owen: That’s it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob’s Pillow we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at DanceInteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course through live experiences during our Festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us soon, either online or onsite.