Action Research in Motion for Dance Audio Description

Abstract

Audio description, an intersemiotic translation modality which makes the visual verbal, enables blind and partially sighted people to access cultural manifestations such as films and pictorial art. Over the last two decades, it has become a burgeoning research theme and an ever-growing accessibility service, especially in the audiovisual sector. However, audio description is still in its early stages in fields such as dance. This article presents step by step the phases of an action research project undertaken with a three-fold aim: fostering knowledge transfer between researchers and practitioners, involving the target audience in the audio description process of a contemporary dance performance, and, at the same time, advancing research on dance audio description.