Before losing her sight, artist and academic Devon Healey had an image in her mind of what blindness was. As her perception changed, she started reimagining what it could mean to be blind and move through this world.
She channels this discovery in her new play, Rainbow on Mars, playing at the Ada Sleight Theatre in Regent Park from August 9-20 in co-production with Outside the March, Canada’s leading immersive theatre company, and the National Ballet of Canada.
Through this exploration, an innovative and poetic form of audio description emerges. Immersive Descriptive Audio is a new accessible stagecraft practice that made its theatrical debut for the first time on a Toronto stage. Healey says this new medium isn’t focused on describing what can’t be seen, but rather imagining the possibilities of what we can’t see.
“One thing about blindness is you can say it in a room and everyone thinks they know what it is,” says Healey.
Mia Johnson teamed up with Amanda Shekarchi, arts and culture reporter, to find out what this production is bringing to the table.