{"id":116417,"date":"2025-07-31T14:04:14","date_gmt":"2025-07-31T18:04:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/?p=116417"},"modified":"2025-07-31T14:04:14","modified_gmt":"2025-07-31T18:04:14","slug":"interview-beyond-sight-theatre-artist-devon-healey-choreographer-robert-binet-talk-innovative-world-premiere-rainbow-mars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2025\/07\/31\/interview-beyond-sight-theatre-artist-devon-healey-choreographer-robert-binet-talk-innovative-world-premiere-rainbow-mars\/","title":{"rendered":"INTERVIEW | Beyond Sight: Theatre Artist Devon Healey & Choreographer Robert Binet Talk About The Innovative World Premiere Of Rainbow On Mars"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"L:
L: Actor\/director Nate Bitton and actor\/creator Devon Healey (Photo: Calin Ardeleanu); Choreographer Robert Binet (Photo courtesy of the artist)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Outside the March and The National Ballet of Canada present the world premiere of Rainbow on Mars, a multidisciplinary co-production between the NBC and Peripheral Theatre. Rainbow on Mars is co-directed by award-winning visually impaired stage combat director Nate Bitton, together with Outside the March Artistic Director Mitchell Cushman.<\/p>\n

The work is the brainchild of artist and academic Devon Healey, founder of Peripheral Theatre, and it\u2019s described as part Pan\u2019s Labyrinth, part Matrix \u2014 a journey into her own loss of vision, and the resulting shift in perception.<\/p>\n

A young woman is thrust into a fantastical world of fabricators and fabulists, where she discovers that her sense of sight is not the only thing that leaves her guessing. It\u2019s the first play by the award-winning theatre artist, and the experience is designed for both Blind and sighted audiences.<\/p>\n

Along with Healey, the cast includes 19 performers with various expressions of Blindness and sight, featuring Healey and Bitton alongside Amy Keating, Sof\u00eda Rodr\u00edguez, Vanessa Smythe, Jeff Yung, and Elliot Gibson in their professional debut, with dancers of The National Ballet of Canada RBC Apprentice Programme, choreographed by Robert Binet.<\/p>\n

The production marks the theatrical debut of Immersive Descriptive Audio or IDA, an accessible stagecraft practice created by Healey that embeds rich audio description and sound design as a character within the story.<\/p>\n

We spoke to creator Devon Healey and choreographer Robert Binet about the innovative project.<\/p>\n

The Interview: Devon Healey & Robert Binet<\/h2>\n

Devon Healey<\/strong> is an Assistant Professor of Disability Studies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. Her focus, as both an academic and artist, is on changing our understanding of Blindness and disability from a negative to an alternative way of perceiving and living in the world. Devon has published several papers in academic journals, and a book on related topics. She is the co-founder of Peripheral Theatre, and an award-winning actor.<\/p>\n

Choreographer Robert Binet<\/strong> is a Toronto native, and a graduate of the National Ballet School. Robert was the inaugural Choreographic Apprentice of The Royal Ballet, mentored by Resident Choreographer Wayne McGregor. He was appointed the Choreographic Associate of The National Ballet of Canada in 2013. He\u2019s created several works for the NBC, including The Dreamers Ever Leave You, which made its premiere as part of an exhibition of paintings by Lawren Harris at the Art Gallery of Ontario, and went on to tour in Canada and the UK. His work has also been performed by companies across the dance world, including the New York City Ballet, Ballet Black, and the Estonian National Ballet, among others.<\/p>\n

He has been the Creative Producer of CreativAction, a program that sees NBC resources shared among the dance community, since 2019, and was appointed Curator and Producer, CreativAction and Special Initiatives in 2021. Robert also serves as Artistic Director and Co-CEO of Fall for Dance North<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Image
Image of Devon Healey inside an eye (Photo: Dahlia Katz; Poster design by Raul Delgado)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Devon Healey (creator and lead performance) and Robert Binet (choreographer)<\/h3>\n

The project has been in the works for a few years.<\/p>\n

\u201cOutside the March, about five years ago, they invited artists to submit ideas for their Forward March campaign,” Devon explains.<\/p>\n

The idea was to nurture brand new shows that had never been workshopped, or otherwise seen the light of day previously.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the time, I was thinking of how to explore the story that has been with me for quite some time,\u201d Healey explains.<\/p>\n

The work takes its inspiration from her own story and journey to Blindness.<\/p>\n

\u201cTheatre has always been a part of my life,\u201d she explains. However, as her sight deteriorated, it became less and less a space where she felt like she could exist. \u201cBlindness had entered my life.\u201d Casting directors and agents just didn\u2019t see her as a performer anymore.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was met with quite a large barrier. I stepped away from theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, her love of the stage never left her, and the idea of sharing her story in a theatrical format became something she wanted to explore.<\/p>\n

For Binet, it began with the basics \u2014 telling a story through theatre and dance. He was contacted by
\nMitchell Cushman, founding Artistic Director of Outside the March. \u201cWe’ve got this incredible script,\u201d he was told.<\/p>\n

As he read it, he agreed. \u201cIt’s screaming out for movement. It’s screaming out for dance,\u201d he says. \u201cThere’s a huge choreographic element to Blindness.\u201d<\/p>\n

As he points out, Blind people understand movement with a very specific intent. \u201cThere are four things that put us in touch with our body: birth and death, Blindness and dance.\u201c<\/p>\n

Those early conversations led to a workshop back in 2021. \u201cWe were just playing with what is now the first scene of the show,\u201d Binet says. \u201cThere was a sort of choreography scripted into the text.\u201d<\/p>\n

Different Approaches to Access: Immersive Descriptive Audio or IDA<\/h3>\n

\u201cTypically when we think of access in theatre or dance, we imagine an audience member,\u201d Healey says, \u201cblind audience members, who need to be filled in on the visual feast on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she points out, conventional descriptive audio is usually presented from the perspective of a sighted person who describes what catches their eye in the scene in question.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I left the theatre from this experience,\u201d Devon says, \u201cI was unsatisfied. There was a restlessness within me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As she points out, it privileges sightedness as the only way of perceiving the world<\/p>\n

\u201cI started thinking about my Blindness, and how I move through the world,\u201d she says. If sightedness is not only the baseline, but the only acknowledged way of describing the world, it leaves everything else out of the equation.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis show, I wanted to flip that,\u201d she says. \u201cInstead of merely describing what can be seen, Blindness becomes the lead storyteller.\u201d<\/p>\n

That storyteller puts the listener in touch with their own bodies, and fosters an internal rhythm that connects with other people.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s that spark we get from other people,\u201d Healey explains. \u201cThrough Immersive Descriptive Audio, instead of describing what we look like, IDA would really describe that spark,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, Sight is a company member. Blindness is going to take us through a journey through our bodies.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an experience that is not often articulated in our visually oriented society.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt must come from a Blind person,\u201d Devon says. \u201cIt is in and of itself a performance, a story. We’ve woven the IDA into the story. What we’re hearing is through a fully formed character.”<\/p>\n

As she describes it, Blind and sighted audience members will experience \u201ca return to collective sensorium in a way that doesn\u2019t privilege sight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Choreography<\/h3>\n

\u201cIn dance, in ballet, we think so much about how we look. There’s mirrors everywhere!\u201d laughs Binet.<\/p>\n

Putting the emphasis on feeling and sound was his starting point. He built the choreography directly from Healey\u2019s script.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevon also asks the dancers what they\u2019re feeling in their body,\u201d Binet says. Those impressions are added to the text. \u201cIt’s like text and dance, but also Blindness and sight dancing together,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevon teases new movement out of me,\u201d Binet says. \u201cWe make something that neither of us could do on our own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Blindness, and the Blind artist, is at the centre of the show,\u201d Healey adds.<\/p>\n

Text & Dance<\/h3>\n

\u201cDevon has an extraordinary ability to translate movement into poetry,\u201d Binet comments. He calls them poems of the body. \u201cI never found text that so closely sits together with dance.\u201d<\/p>\n

He cites its sense of rhythm, texture, and movement. \u201cIt’s really fascinating.\u201d The creative process involved going scene by scene to figure out how the pieces fit together.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery scene is a discovery process,\u201d Binet says. He enjoyed tackling the complex choreographic puzzles that Healey created. \u201cI find that so satisfying.\u201d<\/p>\n

He says he left any preconceived notions of style and aesthetic behind, and instead approached the project with questions. What is the world we’re living in? What are we trying to achieve? How can we do that in movement? \u2014 all the while, without prioritizing how it looks. It was an ongoing process.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t feel like we ever get out of the discovery stage,\u201d he says, noting the five years of development.<\/p>\n

Healey mentions that each individual dancer\u2019s encounter with the combination of dance and text has influenced the show.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe show is really an engagement with every heartbeat on stage,\u201d she says. \u201cHopefully, one day, if this show continues [there will be] new heartbeats and new encounters,\u201d she adds. \u201cThe text will also change a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI know immersive means so many thins in this context, but for me, there’s also this immersion into the dancers,\u201d Robert says, \u201ca deeper sense of what a dancer is feeling in their body.\u201d<\/p>\n

Final Thoughts<\/h3>\n

\u201cI think the important thing about this show is that […] Rainbow on Mars is not going to educate anyone on Blindness. The hope is not that people leave thinking, okay, now I know what Blindness is,\u201d Devon explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy hope is that when people come to the show and experience Rob\u2019s choreography and the story that’s happening, that they leave a little unsure about how we’ve come to be sure that sightedness is the only pathway,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s putting so much trust in our eyes,\u201d she adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerhaps Blindness \u2014 whether you identify as Blind or not \u2014 is part of our collective sensorium,\u201d Healey says. \u201cIt’s part of all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

To be Blind is to experience the world with a different premise from the start.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the beautiful invitations that Blindness offers me,\u201d Devon says, \u201cand I think that Rob and I continue to accept is […] if you identify as sighted, the world is brought to<\/em> you,” she continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cBlindness pushes me and demands that I bring myself to the world, that I explore the world \u2014 that I touch and engage and connect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dance and movement become a uniquely engaging way to connect those thoughts with an audience. \u201cIt’s almost a way to explore the ineffable \u2014 the journey that we are all in the midst of ,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

For her, it represents a renewed connection to the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cDance was waiting with open arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s this open creative sensitivity,\u201d Binet adds. \u201cDance provokes and suggests more than it defines.\u201d It\u2019s a matter of experiencing it, and interpreting that experience on your own terms. \u201cI think we found some beautiful creative common ground there.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere’s a lot more than meets the eye,\u201d Devon laughs.<\/p>\n

Performance Details<\/h2>\n

Previews begin on August 9 at the Ada Slaight Hall, Daniel\u2019s Spectrum, (585 Dundas St. E.), with opening night on August 13. Performances continue until August 20.<\/p>\n