[accessibleimage] Re: Accessible visual aesthetics

I have been working with Tiffany Palloto the Colorado Ballet for the last four years on our Backstage tours. We have one performance for each ballet that we invite people to participate in our expanded session. Each ballet focuses on a different aspect of dance. Typically the first ballet of the year looks at basic positions. We invite a dancer in to demonstrate the basic positions on a table and we reinforce the information with tactile graphics. All tactually accessible.
The second looks at the movements of the corps de ballet. We have small mechanical models that illustrate the movements of Nutcracker, since this is always our second ballet of the season.
The third might look at partnering. We have barbie dolls twisted into partnered positions. To help with clarity about who is doing what we have the male dancer painted with a textured paint and the female remains untextured.
The forth and final ballet might focus on movement. Each participant is partnered with a guide and we are led in dance movements in the dance class room by a teacher. Since dance floors are so special the students are also given information about the springs beneath the floor and marly (SP?) surface.

The balance of the tour is filled with information about the stage design (occasionally we go on stage other times we have models to make it accessible), actual stage props are displayed, costumes (most frequently the entire range of costumes used in the ballet, sometime we have dancers in costume visit our tour), we talk about libretto and sometimes listen to key passages of the music.
We have some lunch and then go to the ballet. Each ballet is audio described.
Every year it is a little different. We are always trying to respond to feedback about what is and isn't working. Our tours are growing each year. I think we had about thirty participants for Nutcracker.
If you have questions for Tiffany, Director of Outreach Education you can contact her at tiffany@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
or me at Ann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

  Ann

-----Original Message-----
From: Lisa Yayla <lisa.yayla@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thu, 19 Jan 2006 10:42:46 +0100
Subject: [accessibleimage] Re: Accessible visual aesthetics

  Hi,

The idea of mapping out what is going on stage was not to be done with the
idea of aesthetics, but for information.
The idea is to be involved, know what is going on. Whether this leads to
an aesthetic appreciation for ballet would
I think be difficult to say. It might. I would guess, learning about
something from one angle can lead to
other types of understanding and appreciation of the same subject in other
ways. We all don't have to go the same
way or route. The map is not a replacement for visual aesthetics, but it
is information on what is going on.

From what I understand there are a lot of blind persons that like to
listen to football on the radio or attend matches.
I would dare to suppose that this is close to an aesthetic appreciation,
enjoyment of the game.  What is it they enjoy?
Isn't football sort of similar to ballet in its movement and drama? Can
one enjoy things on different levels, different aspects?

If a football fan got a tactile or printed diagram of a play (or what ever
they are called), I would guess he/she would get
enjoyment out of it, and exactly what that enjoyment was based on could, I
would, be different from person to person. And
how they learned to appreciate football would I guess too would be pretty
individual.

Best,
Lisa

Personally it's a mystery how anyone can get enjoyment out of football
(sorry not a fan).



accessibleimage@xxxxxxxxxxxxx skriver: 
Hi Chris et al.

Reply inline...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Hofstader" <chris.hofstader@xxxxxxxxxxx>
< address information snipped>

<snip>

I struggle with dance without being able to see.

I think dance typifies the fundamental problem with access to art
compared
to media that is more orientated towards communicating semantic
content.
It
is relatively easy to extract semantic content from visual media, but
I
consider it to be very difficult, if not impossible, to convey visual
aesthetics in another form. Aesthetics are associated with patterns
of
sensory stimuli, with people liking certain patterns whilst disliking
others. The problem with attempting to convert visual aesthetics to
another
sensory modality is that the different sensory systems have different
characteristics. The sensory memory associated with the different
types
of
stimuli is thought to have different characteristics, the different
types 
of
stimuli have different threshold values, and have differing spectrums.
So,
I would consider a direct mapping to be out of the question.

I don't know of any work that has investigated non-direct mappings
between
visual aesthetics and aesthetics for other forms of sensory stimuli.
It 
would be an interesting avenue of exploration to see if there were
mappings
that not only were visually pleasing, but also resulted in stimuli
patterns
that were pleasing in other forms of sensory stimuli.

Will 


Lisa Yayla
Huseby Kompetansesenter
Oslo Norway
lisa.yayla@xxxxxxxxxx




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