A stage, with an unusual disposition of black chairs, with decorations such as silver and reflecting garlands, and people standing in the middle of the stage.

Audio Description Training Workshop with Gravity Access Services

February 20-24, 2023

Location: Centre Francais de Berlin, Müllerstr. 74, 13349 Berlin

Fee: 100€ per participant

Gravity Access Services provides live Audio Description for performances in Germany and abroad. With the support of Tanzpakt Reconnect, artistic director and choreographer Jess Curtis and Blind Art Critic Gerald Pirner will lead a five-day workshop in Audio Description and Extra-Visual Access strategies open to people interested in learning the practice.

Audio Description provides blind and visually impaired people with access to the visual elements – action, costumes, settings, gestures, facial expressions, objects and other visually communicative elements – of e.g. theater, dance or live art performances, television/film screenings, museum exhibitions. Audio Description (AD) is usually a live audio track spoken by a professional Audio Describer to patrons with visual impairments through a wireless headset system, but the service may also be pre-recorded.

Gravity’s Audio Description Team is comprised of performers, themselves professional dancers and actors trained by Gravity Artistic Director Jess Curtis to provide clear and engaging descriptions of the meaningful visual details of a performance that might otherwise be inaccessible to audience members with visual impairments.

Ideal candidates will have good verbal/vocal skills, be familiar with dance, theater and performance in general and be comfortable with improvisationally describing live performance in real time without a set script. Dancers, Actors, Performers encouraged to apply. Please send a current CV and a letter describing your interest to be considered to magda@jesscurtisgravity.org. Space is limited.

The workshop will take place in English and German.

Image credits: Sven Hagolani