Wednesday, January 05, 2022
Feel the sequins: touch tours and headset hosts are a sensation for visually impaired audiences
Theatre | The Guardian: Growing up, trips to the theatre for me involved squinting at the stage, unable to follow what was happening. Being partially sighted, plays have felt out of my reach. But now here I am standing on the stage at Curve theatre in Leicester, running my fingers along the delicate gold sequins of a costume for A Chorus Line. There are around a dozen of us at this pre-show talk for visually impaired people, which gives us a chance to familiarise ourselves with the performance we’ll be watching in an hour’s time.
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2 comments:
1. This article really stood out to me. Specifically, because I have never heard of something like this taking place in the areas, I live in. I am from the Tampa Bay region of Florida. Given, our lively arts culture I wish either a) performances like this are offered more often or b) advertised better to make these opportunities accessible. Truthfully, I know from experience with my grandmother that something like this would really help her theatre-going experience. I saw Hamilton a few years back with her, and although the dialogue is faster paced, she never knew who was speaking. Had an audio service that described who was speaking and provided the character names had been offered to her she probably would have had a much stronger understanding. I am really inspired by this example of accessible theatre, that still holds true to the original production. I look forward to seeing how technology can further aid processes like those in this article.
One of the things Broadway continually fails at is accessibility. I remember Ali Stroker winning a Tony in 2019 only to have to come around from backstage because there was no ramp up to the award stage. For a medium so immersive and innovative, the dependence on visual and audible storytelling seems beneath what Broadway is capable of. This is the first I have ever heard of a touch tour, and it is a really fascinating idea. A live host to fill the role of visual description bots, and an ability to add a tactile experience to replace one of the senses people use to experience theater is genius. This method of making theater more accessible is something that should be far more widespread. In my hometown of Denver, Colorado, a town known for being a very accessible city for blind people, I would be interested to see if services like this exist for our performing arts, but not surprised if they didn’t. A push to see touch tours implemented everywhere is a great idea.
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