Sunday, April 23, 2023 | Special Advertising Section 1 R 32 SPONSORED CONTENT PROVIDED BY PACIFIC NORTHWEST BALLET It’s a notorious moment in an otherwise family-friendly story ballet: In Act 1 of “The Nutcracker,” the ballet’s key antagonist, the Mouse King, emerges from the wings, sporting multiple dark-gray mouse heads, each with its own fanged teeth. The Mouse King brings with him a sense of menace and peril, as yuletide celebration gives way to a battle scene. If you don’t know it’s coming, his entrance — and the conflict that follows — can be jarring. “I think the Mouse King in ‘The Nutcracker’ is highly emotional,” says Stella Margarita Gonzalez, community education and engagement fellow with Pacific Northwest Ballet. Gonzalez is part of an ongoing effort at the company to give audience members with different sensory needs more advance warning about scenes like that one, and greater control over how they engage with ballet’s moments of sensory intensity — whether they involve strobe lights, high-decibel noises or emotionally charged plot points. Through dedicated sensoryfriendly performances and sensory-accessible support at all shows, company staffers like Gonzalez are working to make classical dance more accessible by anticipating audience needs and normalizing resources that can make live performance more inclusive. At a sensory-friendly performance, this can take many forms: House lights are turned on at a low level, fidgets are distributed to every single audience member, and attendees are free to move in and out of the performance hall as needed, reflecting an effort to create what Gonazalez calls a “culture of acceptance.” “We welcome people to bring any sensory items they may need or comfort items they Sensory-friendly performances open doors to new audiences Pacific Northwest Ballet celebrates 50 years of ballet excellence with thrilling dance performances at McCaw Hall; inspiring community education partnerships; and dance training for students ages four to adult at PNB school locations in Seattle and Bellevue. Learn more at www.pnb.org. may need during the show,” says Gonzalez. Quiet spaces are also available, along with live captioning for any dialogue (rare in ballet but not unheard of), movement stations with guided activities facilitated by teaching artists, large-print programs, and a greater volume of staff and volunteers on-hand to connect audience members with any resources they may need. What doesn’t change, Gonzalez says, is the quality of the performance. “Something that I am personally really passionate about is that our sensory-friendly shows don’t compromise the artistic product,” she says. “When you go to a sensory-friendly ‘Nutcracker,’ you have access to the full two hours of it that any other audience member gets. Yes, you can come and go through the audience hall, you can go to a sensory space if you need, but we are not compromising our artistic product in order to have these sensory-friendly shows. We’re not censoring anything. We’re not taking out anything... And that to me is actually the most equitable part about the sensory-friendly shows — that we aren’t treating these audiences differently.” The impacts extend beyond sensory-friendly performances. Working with Dr. Daniela Ferdico of Sensory Access, an organization dedicated to helping organizations develop sensory-friendly experiences, Pacific Northwest Ballet releases sensory guides for every performance throughout the season. That means that for each rep, Ferdico or another staffer from Sensory Access will attend a company dress rehearsal and note anything that could be a sensory concern. This includes everything from how loud the music or applause breaks might be to what the lighting cues look like to emotionally charged moments. In the sensory guide for “The Nutcracker,” the battle scene featuring the Mouse King is flagged for high-decibel volume, strobes and other dramatic lighting changes, high-pitched musical notes and the potentially frightening appearance of the Mouse King and the battle scene. “Our sensory guides are organized in a way that you can follow along during the performance as well and prepare, or maybe a parent can talk to their children,” says Gonzalez. In practice, she says, this meant that audience members at the sensory-friendly performance of “The Nutcracker” had advance warning about the scene — and they used it. “I noticed that during the sensory-friendly “Nutcracker,” people stepped out before the Mouse King,” she says. Being able to anticipate and plan for moments that raise sensory concerns — and being supported in that choice — can be instrumental in fostering a theatrical environment that’s truly inclusive, says Gonzalez. Without it, she says, “the thing that people will remember from our shows isn’t the talent of our dancers, isn’t the amazing production of our crew. It’s one instance that rocks your entire experience,” she says. “We don’t want peoples’ experiences to be defined by one bad moment.” Seattle Center’s McCaw Hall. (Pacific Northwest Ballet) Donate today! The “Nutcracker” battle scene featuring the Mouse King is flagged for high-decibel volume, strobes and other dramatic lighting changes, high-pitched musical notes and the potentially frightening appearance of the Mouse King. (Angela Sterling photo)
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