“This imaginative and immersive performance literally presents the audience with a new sensorial way to experience dance and theater.” – Kim Jackson, Beltline to Broadway
Since 1934, the American Dance Festival has been a recognized leader in modern dance presenting dance performances, and offering educational opportunities and community programs, while maintaining an international reach.
In 2024, ShaLeigh Dance Works presented the world premiere of enVISION: The Next Chapter, an immersive interdisciplinary performance that relied not on sight or sound but on the felt sense of sonic experiences and visual perceptions. In a collective creative process, the work brought together a team of collaborators around two questions: Can we listen to what we see? Can we see what we hear? Conceived explicitly with and for individuals who are low-vision and blind, as well as low-hearing and deaf, the work proposed a new multisensory experience of dance and theater. enVISION: The Next Chapter was presented to a live audience who could choose to experience the show blindfolded or with earbuds, and six audience members were invited to join the experience onstage. This ADF commission built on enVISION: Sensory Beyond Sight, which premiered at ADF in 2022.
enVISION: The Next Chapter by ShaLeigh Comerford was co-commissioned by ADF with support from the Doris Duke/SHS Foundations Award for New Works, and was made possible in part by the Durham Arts Council’s Annual Arts Fund, the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New Music USA, the North Carolina Arts Council, Triangle Community Foundation’s Education & Youth Grant Program, and South Arts in partnership with the NEA and the N.C. Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. The arts are back in North Carolina. The Spark the Arts grant promotes audience inclusion and reengagement in the arts.
We would also like to thank our invaluable community partners Arts Access, Dark Room Ballet, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, The Reality Center, and Vision InSights.
Image Description: The image portrays four individuals, with one of them holding a rectangular window with the three others standing on the other side. The setting has a hazy appearance, with a blue-green tint dominating the image. The window is aged and weathered, featuring a dirty and textured surface with visible scratches and stains. The person holding the window is only visible from the back, with their dark hair partially visible. The three other individuals are seen through the window, their expressions and features somewhat distorted due to the dirty surface of the window. The light in the image creates a calm, almost dreamlike atmosphere with a blur throughout the overall scene.