We want you

Intro-Workshop Creative Audio Description for Dance
by & with Fia Neises and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke 

Where 

tanzhaus nrw, Erkrather Str. 30, 40233 Düsseldorf
Closest public transit stops: Worringerplatz and Düsseldorf Central Station 

When

Saturday, 20.06.26, 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM
Sunday, 21.06.26, 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM 

Who

The workshop on creative audio description is aimed at members of the blind and visually impaired community who are interested in dance and creative audio description. It is also aimed at professional dance artists with any level of sight, who wish to break down barriers within their artistic processes and productions. Together, new forms of aesthetic practices will be developed and practiced, which are accessible to visually impaired and blind dramaturgs, dancers, and audiences. 

The number of participants is limited. Workshop places will be distributed equally between blind/visually impaired and sighted participants. Previous knowledge of creative audio description is not required.

The workshop will be conducted in spoken German, with English translation available.  

What

The two-day workshop with Fia Neises and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke offers the opportunity to become familiar with audio description while giving space to one's own creativity. Additionally, we want to develop dramaturgical methods together that will make dance productions sublime for blind and visually impaired audiences.

Audio description is not understood as a service in this workshop, but rather as an aesthetic accessibility tool and an integral aspect of artistic work (alongside dance, music, costume, etc.). The short-term goal of this workshop is to creatively experiment with various strategies to make performing arts accessible for blind and visually impaired audiences.

In the long term, the goal is to establish frameworks for collaborative work that challenges power structures and serves as a source of inspiration for various roles, such as dance, performance, choreography, and dramaturgy. The hope is that this will lead to more production processes involving blind and visually impaired team members, where blind and visually impaired audiences are recognized as the target audience. 

Workshop Facilitators 

Fia/Sophia Neises is a freelance white queer visually impaired performer, dramaturg, theater educator, and disability rights activist. She works inclusively as a choreographer and dancer as well as an access dramaturg with a focus on visually impaired and blind audiences. Zwoisy Mears-Clarke is a freelance Black queer non-disabled choreographer, dancer, and community organizer. Since the beginning of Zwoisy’s career, using an intersectional approach they have been developing dance productions for audiences of visually impaired, blind, and sighted people in collaboration with visually impaired, blind, and sighted artists.

Fia Neises and Zwoisy Mears-Clarke have been collaborating since 2016. They now wish to share their knowledge and experience with dance artists and members of the visually impaired and blind community and continue researching together with them.

The tanzhaus nrw Jugenkompanie (Youth Company) under the direction of Nora Pfahl and Takao Baba is looking for new members! You are already experienced in dance and would like to share the stage with others? Then be welcome to the casting call. There will be regular rehearsals on Tuesdays from 4:30 pm to 7 pm as well as on selected weekends.

We are looking for young people with dance experience between the ages of 12 to 18.